avi

Thank you Andrew, marvelous rejoinder, very thoughtful, and thought provoking.

Before attempting to address your two main points, allow me, please, to focus for a moment on this particular sentence, which for me, is very significant.

Why significant? Well, two words stand out:

a. "intended"
b. "tall-stories"

a. how do we know what the Gospel writers, "intended"?
b. One man's tall tale, is another's cup of tea. For example, look at the Hindus. Literally millions of folks accept that business. In India, when I was there, many decades ago, cows were walking in front of Mercedes. Cows are sacred.

So, my point is that if we draw up an algorithm, defining religion, not one in particular, but, any religion, then, we will have an easier time exposing one religion in particular as a fraud.


a. I don't know "Mark's" motivation, so, I certainly am not comfortable speculating about what he/she "intended". I suspect, but do not know for certain, that Greek drama/literature/poetry of that era, contained reference to acts of supernatural creatures, as a matter of course, so that the audience reading "Mark", may not have perceived any degree of deception.

b. Yes, Mark has no credibility as an historian, for many reasons, not least of which, is his/her well documented failure to offer the reader an accurate picture of the geography of Galilee.

To repeat myself, ANY author, of any nationality, who posits supernatural phenomena occurring here on planet earth, is writing fiction, not history.

avi

jgoodguy

The term historical Paul Bunyan refers to scholarly reconstructions of the 19th-century figure Paul Bonjean.

Now that would be news about the time of Paul Bonjean, but not now. Using your definition of fiction, HJers professionally regard the gospels, and Paul's letters represent works of fiction but like some forms of fictions, contain historical information. If all you got is 'fiction' say pulp fiction about Billy the Kid, and you intended to recreate the history of Billy the Kid, then that is what you use. A good historian will list his methods, text, sources of text and methodology, but will analyze the text to some conclusion.

The problem for the HJers is that the lack of substantial historical information in the available text is not sufficient to show a HJ that gave anything to the Gospel Jesus and orthodox Christianity than a name.

avi

War and Peace, by Tolstoy, undoubtedly contains accurate historical information. Does that fact change our opinion of this as a work of fiction?

Paul Bunyan was ALWAYS a myth. It never has been, and never will be "historical", no matter how many "scholars" address the issue.

The reason is simple: Paul Bunyan possessed supernatural qualities. He was always, from day one, a work of fiction.

No, Andrew, the Gospels are NOT independent evidence for an historical JC. They are evidence of a mythical, supernatural being, not unlike Zeus, in power.

Those who seek to find "historical" evidence from mythical accounts, are unlikely to persuade anyone.

Simple question, which is aimed at addressing this very point:

Is there any "historical" EVIDENCE found in the numerous claims of sighting extraterrestrial aliens in New Mexico?

Ditto for Loch Ness monster sightings in Scotland.

What, we should get some scholars together, to analyze the issue and draw up a profile of Nessie, based upon mythical gossip and newspaper accounts?

We don't even have comparable readings of the new testament documents available to us....The Alexandrian version is so different from the Byzantine version: how can one possibly regard them as evidence of an historical jesus?

If someone writes that they know how to convert lead into gold, should we gather some scholars together to build up a profile of the claimant, maybe study his ancestry, examine his family for evidence of other nobel prize winning behaviour, write up his discovery in every weekly periodical?

avi

jgoodguy

You have not said a thing that has not been know for a century at least.

OTOH if English lit adopted your methodology, it would be the end of book reports and literary analysis. Why analyze fiction? Many Many college freshmen will idolize you.

PhilosopherJay

Hi Toto,

I was thinking about the stuff in Paul's letter like the statement that he was shipwrecked three times and historians use that to connect the letters to the shipwreck scene in Acts or Paul mentions that he went to Damascus for three years and we get the conversion scene in Acts on his way to Damascus. This simply proves that the author of Acts knew the Pauline letters. However people like Martin Hengel take it as some kind of proof of the historical nature of both.

I just did a new blog post about how I think the words ἐδιώκον (I persecuted) and ἐπόρθουν (destroy) are mistranslated in the letters of Paul. They are used in a poetical sense to show Paul's early love for the Church of God.

It is a quite ridiculous situation really. Imagine someone writing about his wife, "Before we were married, I laid siege to her and tried to ravish her." Based on this, a later writer takes him literally and accuses him of trying to rape the woman. He goes on to write a story in which the man rapes the woman and then falls in love and marries her. Good drama maybe, but quite slanderous fiction. The writer of Acts uses and abuses Paul this way.

Paul's revelation did not bring him to the Church of God, but was a revelation that he could live without the Church of God and didn't need to join it to preach about the Jewish God named Jesus the Anointed. That's why it was 17 years before he even felt the need to discuss anything with the Church Apostles. (Of course this could be Marcion speaking about the Catholic Church through Paul)

Warmly,

Philosopher Jay

PhilosopherJay

Hi Johnnyv,

Sorry, I didn't find the real temple, you'll just have to be happy now that we have found the true nails and ossuary of Mr. Christ.

Warmly,

Philosopher Jay

Yellum Notnef

That's nice and all but I can't eat that kind of mushroom anymore. Did anyone else click on that link? Wow.

aspronot

Inspirational!

(Do you notice that apart from the fact/contradiction that most depictions are mutually exclusive, they also seem to be mostly deserted. Where are the people/souls?)

jgoodguy

Save those nails. We can do a DNA analysis to determine if it was Jesus or not they pierced. One sure marker is no Y chromosome. If so, there is an implication that may explain why Jesus never married.

Vorkosigan

I'm curious, since I think your objection further up in this thread is valid: it does assume that the gospels are useless as information on the HJ.

What methodologies for recovering HJ ur-stuff from the gospel literature do you consider valid?

Vorkosigan