Toto

Carrier was not accepting the possibility of miracles. He was discussing a method of evaluating them the way CSICOP evaluates UFO sightings.

Vorkosigan

Alas, Amazon says it is out of stock.

Vorkosigan

Toto

Vork - are you using Amazon US? My page says there are new and used copies. You could also try some of the other booksellers on the Publisher's page

http://www.prometheusbooks.com/site/.../book_977.html

Vorkosigan

Does your document have a discussion of how we know when we can apply historical criteria in the first place?

Vorkosigan

Vorkosigan

My bad. I think only the hardcover edition is out.

Vorkosigan

Doctor X

Vinnie:

Now I am going to move to Vork's team . . . I understand the criteria, even with regards to embarrasment asking why someone would "make up" a crucifiction.

Unfortunately, other than that you have no actual evidence. Critiques of Mk demonstrate that his account is unhistorical--such as Pilate being swayed, the offer to "let one go," and an over estimation of the power of the Jews, to name a few. Indeed, Mack speculates in A Myth of Innocence that Mk may have made the whole thing up.

It is fine to rank "what is likely" based on such criteria, but I am afraid I need actual evidence to use such terms as "fact."

Layman:

Based on the dating you would have, at best, a rather old eyewitness. Start looking now for an adult eyewitness to Al Capone. This is the problem you have. Furthermore if you assume Jn an "eyewitness account" then accounts that disagree with him must be false. You then lose the Synoptics.

There is evidence that Jn knew Mk's text--checketh out his J of B statements in the beginning and compare to Mk.

--J.D.

Vinnie

I use stratum merely as a means of dating materials. Its simply a way of distinguihing between earlier and later texts. I opted for a cutoff by a 100 years rule and broke the four stratums down from there : "40-60, 60-80, 80-100, and 100-130.

Re the eyewitness stuff. None of the Gospels were written by an eyewitness or by a friend who wrote down all the traditions preached by a recenetly dead eyewitness. That is part of source consideration and stratification. This is what vrtually all critical scholars believe.

Furthermore, our usage of L may be different. What I meant was Lukes Special material. Some scholars do put a lot of Luke's special material into one distinctive source. I use l more broadly simple to denote special Lukan material. I should probably change my usage from L source to LSM (Lucan Special Material) since there might have been a distinctive L source but I think Luke may have had access to a parable and miracle list as well. I of course fit this description from your site: "Some refer to "L" as everything in Luke that is not detected in Q or Mark." That us my general usage.

But Luke made the third stratum as well (80-100). Given that the L material and special Lucan material consists of inherited traditions I put them, along with the special M material in the second stratum (60-80). It could of course date earlier but I see no way to get it there.

I also skimmed the article. The four reasons are not particularly convincing to me for dating L in the 40-60 range.

""""""""As for the date, L should be dated to before 60 CE, perhaps even earlier than 50 CE because 1) it does not hint to the fall of Jerusalem in 70 CE,""""""""

This may be a big assumption about a non-extant source. Unless there is a verse in special L which talks about the temple and cleary does not allude to its demise, this one is reaching. Further, this would date L to before 70 C.E., not before 50 C.E. This is consistent with my dating of the special L material to the second stratum.

Straight line development of titles is problematic and these arguments are not particularly convincing to me.

Oral sources were used into the second century (Papias!). I am not sure what this one is getting at.

Which parables and why are they attibuted to Jesus? Who attributes them to Jesus?

If L material is so original and so early, why isn't its contents found in more streams of Christian thought? Why, of all the NT is Luke the only one to include these early details found in L?

Your article deserves a fuller treatment than this but I am out of time for now. Further, I do not date Q to the first stratum either. I date both Q and the Gospel of Thomas with Mark in the second stratum (60-80).

I tentatively and crudely date Thomas / Q overlapps as 1st stratum, however. That will be explained.

Vinnie

Vinnie

If Mack speculates that Mark made up the crucifixion then all I can say regarding this psuedo-schiolarship is "shame on Mack". I do not think too highly of Mack in certain areas of Jesus research.

Second, as stated, three criteria intersect, possible four. Not just embarrassment.

MA, EC, FS, and possible CPD.

Potential MA datums:

Pauline corpus (info handed on to Paul see 1 Cor 15)
Mark
John
Barnabas (7:3-5)
Josephus
Tacitus
Pre-Marcan Passsion Narrative?

If Mark is dependent upon a PN we are simply trading in a second stratum source for a first stratun source.

In reality all one needs for my MA is Paul and Mark. This gives us source and forms. Paul refers to the cross being a skandalon in the first stratum as my Historical Jesus Skepticism Faq shows.

It is early, embarrassing early and widespread (MA of sources and forms). Paul may even be handing on a tradition that he received from Jesus' follwoers (CPD?).

Denying the force of these three indepdnent criteria is not justifiable skepticism. Your skepticism is flawed Dr. X. Primarily, as I stated above, is that we need to start from the first stratum and work our way up.


Vinnie

Vinnie

:notworthy

Ditto on this one. I recently re-evaluated the Twelve. Came to the conclusion that it is in the "highly probable to virtually certain" range.

Vinnie

Vorkosigan

As we know, when historical evidence goes against our theory, we are free to disregard it.

Fredo betrays Michael and yet he was his brother....a strong argument for the historicity of The Godfather

<sigh> Leidner has already explained this one -- the betrayal is present in the source for this story, The Fabrication of the Christ Myth

Here is part of his presentation:

Chapter 18 p241
THE ALEXANDRIAN PASSION BEGINS
Oedipus: I have wealth, power, craft of statesmanship,
kingly position — I am admired by all!
Teiresias: I tell you, no man that walks upon the earth shall
be rooted out more horribly than you.
Sophocles, Oedipus Rex, scene I
Prologue: The Servant-community welcomes an outsider who is
placed in charge of the funds. He is of noble appearance and inspires
confidence. No one thinks to suspect him. This man, Aulus Avillianus Flaccus, was appointed governor of Egypt in AD 32 by the emperor Tiberius. Philo presents him in his best light at the outset: "He gave to all appearances a multitude of proofs of high excellence... He revealed a brilliant and kingly nature, and bore himself with dignity..." He took office and... "...was sagacious and assiduous, quick to think out and execute his plans... In quite a short time he became thoroughly familiar with Egyptian affairs, intricate and diversified as they are...All matters connected with accountancy and administration of the revenue he managed successfully... He judged important cases and humbled the arrogant... He held this office for six years, and for the first five of these, while Tiberius Caesar was still alive, maintained peace and held command with such activity and vigor that he excelled all his predecessors."1

This is the highest praise. Men less qualified and less noble would
advance to rule the empire, but another fate was reserved for him.

Gospel: It is clear that Egypt required someone to supervise
'accountancy and administration of the revenue' and that this man
must be an outsider, sent in from Rome. It is less easy to understand (p242) why a mendicant Galilean sect required a treasurer to hold the bag. They were under orders to carry no scrip and to give no thought to the morrow, taking only the food and lodging offered them each day. And if they needed a man for fiscal matters, they did not need to recruit one from the other end of the country, where "Judas" was supposed to come from. Philo, reporting history, gives us a clear, identifiable person. The gospel writers, dealing with myth and legend, must invent and improvise to come up with a Judas figure. The parallels always work out against the gospel version.
ACT 1
SCENE 1
In which the trusted friend is tempted into evil and the betrayal begins. Flaccus administered his office in this kingly manner for the five years that Tiberius remained alive. The emperor died AD 37 and was succeeded by Gaius Caligula, a collateral "grand-nephew." Some say that Caligula hastened the demise. The young emperor soon gave signs of mental derangement and began a manhunt against the associates of Tiberius, whom he blamed for the death of his parents. Flaccus had been a close friend to Tiberius and was high on the list. His execution seemed inevitable. Again the Oedipus motif: a forgotten crime of the
past returns to destroy the hero. As news of the executions by Caligula came to the city, Flaccus lost control of himself, in what seems to us as an unroman manner. "He lost all hope and could no longer keep any grip on affairs, so utterly enfeebled was he and incapable of solid judgment."2 Affairs came to a standstill, and the Greeks saw at once what was involved. One writer surmises that the Greeks were in the picture at the very outset. One of the leading Romans executed, one Macro, had
been accused by an Alexandrian Greek, Isidorus, whom Flaccus
himself had ordered exiled to Rome.
"The fall of Macro may well have given Flaccus special cause
for alarm, since it seems likely that Isidorus had a hand in it.
Flaccus had to face the possibility that Isidorus would seek
vengeance for his exile by employing the same tactic against
himself."3
With the governor in this desperate situation, the Greeks made their offer, which Philo sums up:
"We must find you a really powerful intercessor to propitiate
Gaius. Such an intercessor is the city of Alexandria, which has
been honored from the first by all the Augustan house and
especially by your present master. And intercede it will if it
receives some boon. You can give it no greater satisfaction
than by surrendering and sacrificing the Jews."4
The city was indeed a powerful intercessor. The cheap, limitless
grain from Egypt was essential to the Italian economy. Nor was the offer too shocking; no one thought of violence at that time. All the Greeks wanted was to "keep the Jews in line." The Jews were advancing irresistibly from the status of resident aliens to the claim of equal citizenship with the Greeks. Flaccus was
now asked to roll the Jews back to the status quo ante, that of four hundred years back. He agreed; he would have been bent on suicide if he had not. He showed his partisanship in court ases..."...by refusing to give a fair and impartial hearing to the parties in disputes, and leaning to one side only. In all matters he gave the Jews no right of free speech, for whenever any Jew approached he turned away while to all others he made himself readily accessible."5
Gospel: The betrayal by Flaccus proceeds logically, step by step. At this point there is not even any illegality. We are not required to put in any villain thesis. However, in the case of Judas, the
betrayal is sudden, catastrophic, and without known motive. 9p244begins) The mystery of why Judas betrayed is matched by the mystery of why he joined the disciples, why Jesus tolerated him in the ranks, why he took such a paltry sum for the deed, what he hoped would be a better outcome, why he was not seized by the disciples upon open exposure at the Last Supper, why he was needed to identify a well-known man, why he was not used as a witness at the trial, why he repented, and why the repentance took the useless form of suicide rather than a last-minute attempt to rescue the prisoner. None of these crude objections have been allowed to intrude on the gospel drama. The story requires shock-value and emotional-ism, not rational cause and effect.

In which the King of the Jews is taunted and mocked by the gentiles.

His royal robes are burlesqued.
We are following Philo's sequence and he places the Mockery Scene at this point. The background of the episode is omitted by Philo — it has some embarrassing details (we get these separately from Josephus). As Philo tells it, the cold war continued for several months in Alexandria. The Jews then learned, with consternation, that Flaccus through neglect or design had failed to forward to Caligula the message of loyalty and congratulations drawn up by the Jewish community upon the emperor's accession. All cities and national groups in the empire were expected to send messages of this sort, and failure to do so would be deemed a grave affront. In this confused and anxious situation the conflict was suddenly sharpened by the unexpected arrival in Alexandria of Herod Agrippa, a grandson of Herod the Great. He was a nephew of Herod Antipas of Galilee, and a close friend of Caligula's. Like all of his house, Agrippa
was a carrier of disaster. Josephus fills us in that several years before, the Roman governor of Syria, who had overall authority over the provinces of Judea and Samaria, had run Agrippa out of the region for bribery, influence peddling and general meddling in the affairs of the city of Damascus. Agrippa was without title or office at that time. He proceeded to

{leidner ends}

Of course, we can only give a taste of Leidner's discussion here. Read the book.

Vorkosigan