spin

You're not revving up the engine. I cited explanations of Greek terms in Latin. I cited the existence of Latin idioms translated into Greek. This is not a matter of terms traveling with Rome, but of wording things for Romans. I've seen the attempts to make light of the Latin substratum by ignoring a lot of the evidence while acknowledging the simple facts.

Look at o estin: it's used nine times in Mark, twice in Matt (once in the birth narrative and once from a Marcan source), and Luke doesn't feature the form at all. That's because as an expression it isn't Greek. It's translated from Latin id (or quod) est.

(This "but" of course is you talking through your hat. Naughty.)

And this is just an unfalsifiable theory worth what all unfalsifiable theories are worth.

Yup. Syria and Palestine, ie the Levant in general.


spin

Elijah

It was/is a neat phenomenon that I don’t fully understand but it does seem that conviction is contagious as they say or the sign of Jonah as Jesus predicted. Which speaking of is the only prophecy he makes that is noteworthy to me as you said “anyone can predict the fall of anything”. But knowing your death was going to impact the world and that conviction is going to spread from you like that is highly impressive because it is highly unusual. But it’s not really much of a prophecy as it is what seems to be trying to do, so it’s more about him succeeding in what he was trying to than making an accurate prediction.

spamandham

Mark 13
1As he was leaving the temple, one of his disciples said to him, "Look, Teacher! What massive stones! What magnificent buildings!"

2"Do you see all these great buildings?" replied Jesus. "Not one stone here will be left on another; every one will be thrown down."

There are bizarre minority positions on everything, but the position that this is *not* talking about the destruction of the temple is one of the oddest.

...unless Paul was also written later. IMHO, it's time to stop pretending the "scholarship" traditionally used to date the NT texts holds any validity at all, throw it out completely, and approach the problem as we would any other set of texts.

20 years is ample time, assuming this sequence is correct. Afterall, the traditional datings would have us believe that Matthew and Luke built off Mark in even less time than that. Why are you not complaining about the implausibility of that short time frame?

But we don't even know that Justin used a harmonized version of Matthew and Luke - that conclusion is based on the assumption that Mattew and Luke are 1st century works. It could just as easily be the case that Matthew and Luke built on whatever Justin had instead.

Care to speculate why Justin only ever refers to the memoirs of the apostles, and never mentions the gospels as we know them either by name or direct inference? Are you sure that what he refers to as memoirs of the apostles is not a now lost document that he quoted from, and which was used by the authors of the canonical Gospels?

...or does Luke's use of Marcion rule out an early date for Luke? ...or do Marcion and Luke lean instead on an unknown source(s)?

Again, the conclusion that Marcion used Luke is based on the assumption that Luke preceded Marcion. If the assumption were reversed, so too would be the conclusion.

I disagree as I've argued in this thread previously. Quotes within these types of writings should be looked at as the author speaking to his readers, not as dutiful historical records of what someone actually said. The writer knew this, and the readers knew it. Further, as another poster pointed out, the Gospels were liturgical writings read aloud. Those listening in the srevice would understand the reader to be talking about them.

...or it's evidence that later writers were filling in the details that were originally missing. A common practice in the development of myths and legends.

I tell you what, just present Papias' quotes from Mark, and the source of those quotes, and we can discuss them.

spamandham

...for several days, I was not receiving email updates of the threads I'm subscribed to, so I'm sure I missed a lot of replies...

Mark 13
1As he was leaving the temple, one of his disciples said to him, "Look, Teacher! What massive stones! What magnificent buildings!"

2"Do you see all these great buildings?" replied Jesus. "Not one stone here will be left on another; every one will be thrown down."

Elijah

Sorry I wasn't clear. Not the prophecy. Which historian first recorded that they actually tore it down to no stone left on top of another stone? I see it coming up in Google with a gold dripping down the walls story but I didn't see the actual source right off.

spamandham

I don't know about the dripping gold business...but in regards to the complete destruction of the temple, I believe Casius Dio recorded that the entire city of Jerusalem was razed to the ground...which means "no stone left on top of another".... this was done in response to the Bar Kochba revolt (130-135 CE).

...I'm unsure if this is the earliest record of the complete annihilation of the temple.

(see http://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/...s_Dio/69*.html)

aa5874

But, in the Jesus story when Jesus was arrested all the disciples fled the scene except Peter who had to deny Jesus probably to save his own life. And while Jesus was being crucified, the disciples were hiding.

The death of Jesus had a negative impact on the disiples.

Doug Shaver

Many years ago I watched a TV movie about Christa McAuliffe. The movie made no reference to her death or to the explosion of the Challenger. She was still alive when the movie ended.

Would it be reasonable to infer that the movie must have been made before the Challenger exploded?

Elijah

From earlier
Well if you find the source of the gold story let me know. As has already been mentioned there are still stones standing so the whole city being razed to the ground shouldn’t be taken literally. I wouldn’t have a problem with you saying the temple was completely gone by then because they built a new one but that prophecy was about the buildings not the temple and we don’t know their condition at that point in history from the text provided.

Looking at the Jesus reference plainly, it looks more like it’s a commentary on the temporal/temporary nature of matter after his disciples are marveling at the buildings, more so than about a prophecy of a specific event.

Elijah

I don’t see how this has anything to do with understanding the spread of a self sacrifice meme. Do you understand the effect a self sacrifice meme spreading with the message would have on convincing people of the religion?