Roland

Tolstoy's "War and Peace" takes place in Russia during the Napoleonic Era. One of the main characters, Andrei Bolkonsky is said to be an adjutant to the Russian commander-in-chief, Kutuzov. During the Battle of Austerlitz, Andrei is seriously wounded. As he's brought to the hospital, Napoleon himself takes note of Andrei and makes a comment to him. Andrei also has a father, sister, wife etc.

Now, does any of this make Andrei a real person who actually lived? Of course not.

The problem, as I see it, with the gospels is that they are written more like narratives than historical documents, more like Tolstoy than Josephus or Tacitus.

Amaleq13

No, but I will explain how I was using the terms. They differ with regard to the primary intent of the author. The former has an author who is primarily concerned with teaching history while the latter is primarily concerned with teaching theology. Both provide their instruction by way of a story but the former is more concerned with literal truth while the latter is more concerned with theological truth. The former, therefore, has less room for creativity and we would not expect that author to feel free to alter his sources.

There is a significant difference between a story that is set in a historical context and a historical story. The former can clearly involve creative additions (ie fiction) while the latter cannot. What evidence suggests to you that Matthew's rewrite of Mark must be understood as the latter?

It hardly suggests we should naively assume he is recording history. His nativity has absolutely no external support and appears to derive from the story of the birth of Moses. Likewise, the scene depicting the Raised Saints appears to have no basis in reality. Please explain to me why I should assume Matthew is writing history when such obvious fiction exists in his narrative?

Matthew's nativity is, to all appearances, a fictional story created for theological reasons. He has taken names provided by Mark and fabricated a birth story that seems to be derived from the story of Moses. This is clearly a fictional story that the author considers theologically true.

Are you kidding? This theological motivation for this story is pretty obvious and this "real world" context is entirely irrelevant! The story is clearly about Jesus being recognized as the Messiah by the woman and the location is entirely irrelevant to that point. It could just as well have said "Now while Jesus was at Sepphoris in the house of Timothy the tax collector" and retained all of its importance to the author.

Your example above proves otherwise. The theological truths expressed in Matthew's narrative appear to be largely independent of the historical context in which they are depicted.

Can and did, amigo. We only need to compare the nativity stories from Matthew and Luke to see that the same theological truth is expressed in entirely incompatible historical contexts! Jesus was the Messiah and he was, in accordance with Scripture, born in Bethlehem! This is the theological truth both authors believed.

How many instances of obvious fiction do you require before you begin to suspect the historical reliability of the whole? I think we've already seen enough in this post alone. If you disagree, I suspect it is impossible to provide enough examples to change your firmly held conviction.

I see no reason to share your certainty and much reason to doubt it.

Untrue. You are forgetting why the notion of Jesus as an entirely spiritual being exists in the first place (ie Paul's letters as interpreted by Doherty). If we start with that interpretation and move to these narratives that, to all appearances, are more concerned with expressing theological beliefs rather than teaching history, the conclusion is not that far-fetched and your attempted comparison falls flat.

I'm saying that, given the amount of fiction apparently involved in the story and the emphasis on theology, it is possible that the author shared a Dohertyesque belief in a Pauline Jesus.

As I have already stated, these stories really cannot establish the case either way. Whether Jesus existed as a historical person or only as a spiritual entity, the authors of these narratives do not appear to have known much, if anything, about him except what they believed through faith to be true.

No story can be considered reliable evidence of what the author was thinking. I would think that should be obvious. The best way to determine what an author (or any person for that matter) was thinking is to ask them. Short of that, I would probably be happy with the author identifying himself and the source(s) of his information. If the author wrote something like "My name is Matthew and I walked with Jesus as he preached in Galilee." and then proceeded to tell an apparently historical story that he felt compelled to interpret theologically, I would be much more inclined to accept the assumptions you wish to apply to the current story. The author of Luke approaches this but, IMO, falls short and appears to be just as focused on expressing his theological beliefs.

Other than the rest of the gospels (canonical and non), you mean? I know of none. I consider the body of narrative texts associated with Jesus to be unique regardless of their ultimate nature just as I consider the development of Christianity to be unique.

Perhaps, if they had, they would have experienced as much success as Christianity. Within the context of my secondary suggestion, the purpose of the stories was to make the more complex theological truths more readily accessible to new converts. Continuing within the context of my secondary suggestion, Paul can be understood as referring to these stories when he wrote:

"I have fed you with milk, and not with meat: for hitherto ye were not able to bear it, neither yet now are ye able."

The stories, at their literal level, are the "milk" while the theological truths they express are the "meat".

Upon what evidence is this assertion based? If Matthew had access, why not his audience?

How can one intend a story one does not consider "completely reliable" to be taken in a "straightforward sense"? You seem to me to contradict yourself. You have the basic facts but your preconceived notion appears to be dictating the conclusion. The fact that Matthew did not regard Mark as historically reliable clearly indicates we should not regard his rewrite of the story any more so. That conclusion can only be strengthened when one notes the specifically historically unreliable, yet theologically significant, additions the author makes to the original.

Why not? You argued for this before my claiming the author of Matthew specifically identifies his generation as the one immediately following that of Jesus but the passage you offered failed to make that case.

I consider Mark's narrative to follow the apocalyptic developments in the Q community. While the author does not appear to have had a copy of the alleged text shared by Mt and Lk, he does appear to have been familiar with the prophets it describes. Whether Jesus was the historical founder of the Q prophets of the Kingdom of God or not, they had already attributed their apocalyptic beliefs to him by the time Mark wrote his story.

What happened to your reliance upon the "historical details" of the story to conclude the story is historically true?

Paul tells us that belief in an Imminent End resulted from belief in the resurrection of Christ as the "first fruits". He does not tell us when Christ died but a later author, who decided to create a narrative to express his community's beliefs, might choose to place that event not much earlier than Paul's preaching. If so, he would naturally place prophecies of that belief in the mouth of Jesus. He might also, if he was familiar with a group of wandering prophets who preached an Imminent End, choose to pattern his depiction of a living Jesus on their example.

spin

Well, faith, at least.


spin

ichabod crane

Because the way Matthew treats Mark does not support your thesis. He makes changes and rearrangements, but he certainly does not reject outright the account. He treats it as being basically historically accurate, so much so that he builds the whole structure of his gospel around it. Now, Matthew might have been wrong and Mark might be a load of unreliable hogwash. But the way the writer of Matthew treats Mark shows that he believed it to be a record of actual events.

You seem to be assuming that either the story must be completely true, or it is fiction. But a work can contain historical information, intended as such, and yet have got that historical information wrong. In other words, perhaps Matthew was just mistaken about the facts that you mention (granting your claims for the moment). He thought that Jesus was born a certain way, perhaps having been told that by someone in the community, but in actual fact Jesus wasn't born that way. In that case, Matthew's writing is still intended to be read as describing actual events.

Or a story that the author believed to be actually true, with theological significance. Part of your problem is that you make things an either/or, either it is theological or it is historical. But that is a phenomena of modernism, it is alien to ancient Hebrew thought. Ancient Hebrews saw history and theology as inextricably related. So in this case, Matthew sees Jesus as a second Moses. But he sees him that way only because he believes the actual history of Jesus' birth paralleled Moses' birth. That is part of the proof of who Jesus is, for Matthew. Whether the proof is true or not is irrelevant to the question of how Matthew understood it.

No, the real world setting is crucial to the theological point. It is only because Jesus was actually recognised as the Messiah in the real world that the point is made theologically. It shows that it was possible for people to recognise him as such if they had faith, in contrast to the unbelieving Jews. If a real woman didn't do so, then the point fails.

No they aren't. You're reading modernism into ancient Hebrew culture.

Yes, because they had different sources, neither of them completely reliable. So they worked those different sources to the same theological end. That doesn't prove diddly squat.

I'm not arguing about the historical accuracy of Matthew. If you like, I will concede that Jesus never existed, and that all of Matthew is entirely untrue. But I would still argue that the writer of Matthew thought it was true and intended to make true statements about what happened. That is the point that you keep missing. You argue that this or that incident didn't happen, therefore Matthew intended it as fiction. That just doesn't follow.

Yes it can, quite obviously. If we had to have people in the here and now to question them before we found out what they thought, we could never find out anything about practically any person who is dead. If a person expresses themselves clearly, then we can know what they were thinking. Only if they didn't express themselves clearly on some subject, does doubt arise.

Firstly, manuscripts had to be hand copied and were very expensive. Secondly, Matthew seems to have circulated in Syria as the only gospel, because the writer of the Didache quotes from it exclusively and calls it "the gospel". It seems that it was the only gospel in circulation in Syria at the time.

All the time in historical work. If I am a historian working with multiple sources, I have to make a judgement about which sources are reliable in what respects. For example, two sources might contradict each other on some matter. So I make some judgement about which is more likely to be true. That doesn't mean I toss out completely the source which I judged to be wrong in that instance.

On this, we have to agree to disagree. I submit that the context is crystal clear that he is talking to the generation of his hearers. Think otherwise if you will.

I never said any such thing. I said I relied on historical details as marks that the story was intended and believed by the author to be historically true. That doesn't mean it really was historically true.

If what you are saying is true, then we should expect to find some ancient interpretations of the gospel of Matthew that treats it in such a manner as fiction. But all the ancient interpreters assumed that it was describing real history. Can you cite any evidence to the contrary?

Amaleq13

Outright rejection is not necessary to support my thesis. Changes and rearrangements, on the other hand, are central in supporting it.

First you admit that AMt considered Mark "not completely reliable" and now you insist that he considered Mark "basically historically accurate". These are not compatible observations. The former is derived from observing the evidence but the latter appears to have more to do with preconceived notions than the actual texts.

Tell me how the author of Matthew's treatment would be different if he only considered Mark to be theologically accurate.

I do not share your confidence in your ability to read the mind of Matthew's author because I see no evidence to support it.

Untrue. I simply observe that Matthew's author does not treat Mark's story as though it were reliable history and then proceeds to add obvious fictions to his rewritten version of the story. When I consider the fictional additions, I note that they are theologically significant. I note the same can be said about what is retained from Mark. There may very well be some historically accurate information contained within both of these stories but I see no way that it can be reliably extracted. I think there was too much faith involved in the creation of the stories to allow such an effort to succeed.

I don't find that to be very credible speculation. The birth narrative has very clear theological motivations. A specific messianic prophecy is fulfilled and a clear comparison to Moses is made. There is no evidence that the Slaughter of the Innocents ever actually happened and we would certainly expect Josephus to have mentioned this among the crimes of Herod he loves to repeat.

Again untrue. You have misidentified the actual dichotomy. A story is either historically reliable or it is not. As you have already acknowledged, AMt's treatment of Mark suggests he did not consider that story to be "completely reliable". If Matthew's author couldn't rely on Mark's story, why should we? You've yet to explain how you determine which portions are and which are not to be relied upon. When we turn to what Matthew has added to Mark's story, we find find birth stories apparently derived from the Hebrew Bible, including the mass murder of infants, and tales of dead saints rising from their graves. All the evidence suggests we not try to understand Matthew's story as an attempt to write history. Yet each and every one of these stories, including what was retained from Mark, has a very clear theological importance. It is only reasonable to follow this evidence and understand the story the way it appears the author intended. I see no reason to assume that the author actually believed that numerous graves opened and dead folks walked into town.

I have repeatedly acknowledged that this might very well be the case but I have also repeatedly observed that there is no reliable evidence showing that this must be the case. As it stands, the only thing we can say with any reliability is that the story has theological significance to the author. This is true whether or not any specific claim is historically accurate or even whether the author believed the whole story to be historically accurate. There is no reliable evidence to argue for either of those claims, contrary to your repeated assertions, but there is absolutely no question of the theological motivations involved in the story's creation. I'm simply working with what can be reliably obtained from the story.

And there is absolutely nothing in the story that can reliably inform us how the author understood it.

It is possible that a real world setting was crucial to convey the theological point but you have not even approached establishing that the real world setting described was necessary. Do you understand the difference? The former describes historical fiction while the latter describes history. The only example you provided failed to show that the specific historical setting described was necessary to convey the theological truth expressed. As far as we can tell, any apparently historical setting would have done just as well.

What evidence causes you to conclude that Jesus was recognized as the Messiah while he lived?

On the contrary, I don't think the woman was real yet I still understand the point of the story. The implication is also clearly made that the woman, unlike the disciples who had been explicitly and privately told about the upcoming death of Jesus, "somehow" knew he would be killed and buried without being anointed first. This is not history, my friend, it is pure theology.

Whether they obtained their nativity stories from outside sources or created them on their own, the fact remains that neither can be considered history on its own and certainly not when compared. They are clearly fictional accounts of the birth of Jesus motivated by a shared theological desire to depict him as fulfilling a particular messianic prophecy. When we take the Fourth Gospel's failure to assert this fulfillment (Jn 1:46), the fictional nature of both stories only becomes more obvious.

It is not a point I have missed but a point you have yet to make with any persuasive appeals to specific evidence. I have repeatedly acknowledged that this is possible but, just as repeatedly, observed there appears to be no good reason to assume it.

No, I argue that at least some of Matthew's story is clearly fiction specifically created to convey a theological point. The rest lacks any support to show that it should be considered historically accurate yet it, too, appears intended to convey a specific theology. The historicity of Matthew's story runs from "unknown" to "clearly fiction" but the common denomenator that runs throughout the story is "theologically significant".

Unless the dead person had specifically stated what they were thinking, it is utter hubris to assume that you know.

And where does the author of Matthew clearly express that he considered his story to be historically true?

Therefore no one in Matthew's community had ever heard anything like his story about Jesus? I don't consider that credible.

If you chose one version over the other, you have essentially tossed out the other version. On what evidence do you conclude that Matthew's author conducted such a careful consideration of Mark in deciding what to keep and what to omit or change?

How do you determine if a given detail is "historical"? This seems to me a very naive criterion that serves only to affirm a conclusion assumed beforehand.

I think it is highly unlikely that anyone who considered the story to be primarily theologically true would bother with the superficial details at all. That said, I think the evidence suggests that the stories came to be considered historically true, at the latest, in the mid to late 2nd century. Not, however, because this was something traditionally known yet never before explicitly stated but because it served a polemical purpose in identifying "heretical" beliefs.

rlogan

I really am having difficulty with what point you are making.

Paul is famous for the letters canonized. That you disagree with this strikes me as absurd.

That I would need to establish this on the basis of anything other than the direct observation is silly. If you feel Paul is not famous for these letters, we just disagree.


Addressed by Jacob Aliet. Paul was recognized as a powerful writer.


So direct contemporary acclaim isn't sufficient for you, apparently.


Silly straw man.

Ditto.


That's why I put "Christians" in quotes. Because the precursors to christians who wrote the texts they relied upon had a long tradition of fabrication.

Amaleq13 has made a very solid point that these are (duh) theological writings and not history.


Didn't do that. There was no slaughter of the innocents. There cannot be three geneaologies of jesus. Water cannot be turned into wine. Etc. Etc. The Christians wrote fables.

*sigh*

Nobody cares much about three generations down the road. Fine if you disagree

You are addressing a former gospel singer. Fellowship of Christian atheletes. Campus Crusade for Christ. Campus Bible Study. Evangelical summer camp counselor. Spoke in tongues. Laying hands on people and casting out demons. I realize the brainwashing I went through and can see some pretty simple evidence now - such as the physical impossibility of coming back from the dead - that demonstrate conclusively the gospels are fiction.

You've brushed aside pretty stark evidence that the gospels are fiction and simply asserted it is a "presupposition". Definately not in my case, buddy.

I don't know what point you are trying to make.


A while ago I started a thread here where I asked people to come up with things that were significant about Jesus' life that were not in the HB.

Precious little, and indeed it is a point of pride among the fundies that "proves" he is the messiah. Because everything about him was foretold in prophesy.

Cheers...

ichabod crane

OK, Amaleq13, I surrender! It's been a good discussion and I'll have to think about things some more. But I'm still not convinced!

All the best,

Ichabod.

Amaleq13

More of a potentially temporary retreat than a surrender then.

I would be shocked if the subject didn't come up again.

But you kept your head, at least, ichabod crane.

Rick Sumner

I said, explicitly, that Paul *is* famous for those letters. The point is that this was not always the case, and indeed there was clearly a time when he was more famous for establishing churches.

You need to give me a reason to believe that, to his *contemporaries*, Paul would be most reknowned for his letters, rather than his deeds. That you don't understand why this is the case strikes me as absurd.

You need to explain to me why the fact that Paul wrote letters set him apart from his peers--peers who also clearly wrote letters, Paul dictates to someone. That someone is so little known that we don't even have his name.

JA's case was that letter writing was a distinction worthy of mention. This is false. The person who wrote Paul's letters goes without either distinction or mention.

You also need to learn the difference between a book that contains fiction, and a book that needs its genre classified as fiction.

Herodotus made up a whole account of Solon and Croesus wholesale. Not a word of it is true. Solon and Croesus lived decades apart, and almost certainly never so much as met. Are Herodotus' "Histories," now works of fiction?

Fiction is a genre, all kinds of things that are utterly untrue are not works of fiction. Look at Creation "Science," for example.

The fact that you were a Christian for years means nothing to me. I don't care if you sang in the choir, attended Catholic school, stood on your head whilst chanting the catechism. That entire argument is utterly irrelevant.

This is a mistake committed a lot, actually, so it should be cleared up. An argument that the gospels are fiction needs to take the following form:

All works of fiction have characeristic X, where all works that aren't fiction do not have characteristic X. The gospels have characteristic X.

In which case, for all intents and purposes, you would have established a logical proof. This is unlikely. So "all" can contain a few exceptions, but they need to be exceptions, and they need to be a *very* distinct minority. Otherwise it's a specious criteria.

Let me know when you've solved for X. Until you've done so, you've done exactly what I've already stated: Presupposed.

Be back when I have time,
Rick Sumner

Amaleq13

It is my understanding that the communities to which these letters were sent read them aloud when they gathered together and their consideration of their import is the reason they have survived to this day. OTOH, we have nothing else from this community regarding Paul. Nobody saved any accounts of his visits or of hearing him preach or performing miracles.

How about if we change "fiction" to "unreliable as history"?

All works that are unreliable as history contain claims that cannot be confirmed by other sources.

The Gospels contain claims that cannot be confirmed by other sources.

Therefore, the Gospels are unreliable as history.