J-D

Mark 11:18Did I? Where?I think your recasting obscures rather than clarifying. The Gospel accounts are not historically accurate, nor did I ever suggest that they were. They are not an accurate account of an unjustly crucified genuine charismatic preacher, and they are not an accurate account of unjustly crucified deranged man. So the question then becomes this, which of the following two scenarios is more likely: (1) a deranged man with no following in his life is remembered as significant after his death, and fictitious accounts are later grafted onto this base, overlaying and obscuring the historical truth; or (2) the memory of a crucified preacher is preserved after his death by those who followed him in life, and fictitious accounts are later grafted onto this base, overlaying and obscuring the historical truth?
We know that the grafting of fictitious accounts took place, and I don’t see any reason why it would be less likely to happen under scenario 2 than under scenario 1.It is risky to assume that something took place just because it was a high-probability event. But assuming that a low-probability event took place is even riskier. And not attempting to make any estimate of the probabilities and risks is itself risky.I had in mind nothing different in principle from what you had in your scenario. In your scenario a deranged man unjustly crucified was remembered after his death. The scenario did not assume that the gospel accounts were an accurate recollection of his biography. If we are assuming an unjustly crucified man about whom the historically inaccurate gospel accounts later clustered, I don’t see why it’s more plausible to imagine that man as deranged than as a genuine charismatic preacher. The role I posited for his following in my alternative scenario was preserving some account of the man until the point when the fictions started to gather, although it seems to me that it might also explain the origin of the distinct Nazarene-Ebionite tradition.I don’t think I can do much better than repeat the part of my earlier post which you snipped in your response:Although I will throw in the additional speculation that they may well have been specifically Nazarenes.

dog-on

What if we are, in fact, dealing with two separate traditions that are, in the second century, merged together? What if the original writings, attributed to the Apostle Paul, do not mention the name Jesus in the original text, but only refer to a mysterious Christ? What if, separately, a Messiah, different in some ways to the original Jewish conception of such is somehow developed as a reaction to the destruction of the Temple around 70AD, in Palestine? The Jews can no longer commune directly with Yahweh, a mediator is required since sacrifices are no longer possible. Some sect of these Jews, reading Daniel and Isaiah, etc. , create this mediator. Later, this mediator is combined with the "Pauline" theology by someone like Marcion. Marcion's version of Luke becomes the first Gospel, maybe based on a proto-Mark tragedy. Matthew makes this Jesus Jewish and Gospel Luke is expanded and Acts is added to bring Paul into the fold.

Clivedurdle

I have no problem with keeping Lord Jesus Christ as original. Allusions to Yahweh, saviour, messiah, Joshua sound like a pretty good 'name above all names" for the magical ritual bits of a mystery religion.

Good rituals need names that roll off the tongue, and that one works very well!

Didymus

That doesn't mean it's not important to understanding the growth of Christianity, but it is off topic. I'll pursue it at a later time in another thread.

Didymus

Didymus

Good effort, but too speculative for me. If we are willing to work from the presumption that there have been major, sweeping changes to several texts, that presumption needs to be well supported by expert textual analysis. Without that, all bets are off, and we can conjure up just about anything.

Didymus

Didymus

I agree. But we seem to have lost sight of land here.

The importance of the reference to HJ/MJ/pj is not the nature of the familial relationship, but the fact that it has Paul meeting with a human being (James) who knew "the Lord," which term, in this context, is pretty hard to construe as referring to other than a human Jesus.

As I mentioned, AFAIK, this is the only place in the entire NT where the author claims to have actually met an eyewitness, someone who knew Jesus as a man on earth.

(As everyone seems to acknowledge, Paul does not suggest that Peter had been Jesus' companion during his earthly ministry. That can only be established by retrojecting from Mark.)

If the passage is authentic, it supports the contention that Paul regarded Jesus as a human being. Once again, I refer you to Ben C Smith's very persuasive argument to that effect. If we accept Ben's argument, we have no choice but to toss MJ out the window and find something better.

Enter VMJ, or PJ, if you will.

Didymus

dog-on

I understand your point. Absent another amazing find in the sands of Egypt, with regards to textual analysis, we are only left to conjecture about the accuracy of copies of copies. Major revisions of the originals could conceivably have been accomplished prior to the end of the second century. Such alterations and forgeries were not unheard of , re: Irenaeus and Tertullian. So are we left with trying to determine the most probable history based on the argument from the least absurd possibility?

Didymus

Sorry, Jake, but if I start babbling incoherently, it's because your idiosyncratic spelling of "crucifixion" is driving me crazy.

Eh? Did I miss something? Did somebody say that the NT references to burial were "derivative of Roman execution practices." Actually, I recall that that body was found in an ossuary, and it is thought that the family requested the body.

But none of that has any bearing on whether the Jesus story began with an actual crucifixion.

I just don't understand this insistence that there must be some literary antecedent for everything. Paul lived in a real world with real people. What is so implausible about an author of fiction using the world around him as a source of ideas?

As I've said before, there's good evidence that the gospels were largely derived from the LXX. But it's one thing to identify literary parallels in story structure; it's quite another to assume that every factoid (fact-like element) simply must have a source in some ancient text.

Take it for what it's worth:

Josephus, in Jewish Antiquities book 18, chapter 5, paragraph 2, records that "John the baptizer," who was "a good man, and commanded the Jews to exercise virtue," was executed by Herod in about 37 CE.

Unlike the TF, this Josephus passage is of undisputed authenticity.

Paul did mention baptism on several occasions. There's no scriptural antecedent for this. Horror of horrors, I think it's quite possible that JtB is also based on historical fact. I'm talking here about the idea of baptism, not about the NT story of JtB and Jesus.

"Even historical events"? Hmmm. Sure you want to say that? That's quite a momentous concession.

Didymus

Amaleq13

While the reference to the Baptist is accepted by the vast majority, it is not "undisputed" if only because of Zindler's The Jesus the Jews Never Knew.

Didymus

Thanks, Amaleq13. I guesss anything that has any connection to Christianity has been disputed by someone. "Undisputed" and "indisputable" are both risky terms, best avoided.

Didymus