TedM

GLuke not only didn't expose it, he said he got information from eyewitnesses. GJohn not only didn't expose it, he implied that his information came from a close disciple. And, we have not a clue from any of the 6 works that the authors really knew or believed this man never lived on earth recently and in places they mentioned. Further, we have no evidence that the early Christians who would have been very interested in these works thought that they were metaphors either. It seems to me that a conspiracy style cover-up is required to support your suggestion that these authors knew it was all a metaphor. The evidence we have -- at least 6 gospels talking about a man on earth, some insisting he was a man, no clue from them of belief otherwise, and no clue/tradition that there was ever belief or acknowledgement/understanding in the Christian community that they were intended to be understood as metaphor, and no clue that this was a topic of controversy in early Christianity at all--all this evidence, or whatever one wants to categorize it as, seems to me to reduce the likelihood that this metaphor approach was a theme that ever existed all in the first place to "very small".

ted

freigeister

Not necessarily. Some of us hold that an accurate understanding of the Gospels can be attained through the application of sound exegetical tools: knowledge of the language and culture in which they originated, understanding of the first principles upon which they are based, and application of general rules of logic and reason.

Amaleq13

I agree that both authors are trying to create the impression that their version of the story should be considered the most reliable but I would think it is equally clear, given the differences between them, that at least one of them is not being truthful. I would suggest that there is really no good reason to believe either version of the story was based on anything anyone who actually experienced the events described had related.

You seem to be ignoring that these authors would have considered the metaphor to be conveying The Truth so there wouldn't have been anything to "cover-up".

No, we just have a rather large gap in time between authorship and Christian interpretation. You assume that the way the later Christians understood the text is the way earlier Christians understood the text but is there any reason to make that assumption?

Amaleq13

Believing one has an "accurate understanding" of the Gospels and establishing that any given detail can be relied upon as historically accurate are entirely different things.

Feel free to start a thread in which you establish what can be reliably considered historical in the Gospel stories.

freigeister

What I am getting at is that we cannot assess the statements within a text without first assessing the text as a whole.

Let me give you an example.

In 1613, a native Andean wrote to king Philip III of Spain. The full text of his letter is posted, in Spanish, here.

Extracts in English are here:

Here is a quotation:

Now, there is obviously mythological content in this document, as we see with the reference to Noah. And obviously much else is unverifiable. Yet, I don't think that anyone would say that this document is worthless, or that we cannot derive important observations from it. It is important for what is: a native American's tale of his own history.

Likewise with the Gospels. They are important for what they are: testimonies regarding a remarkable man. Once we understand and accept that fact, the question of details can be treated in context. If you do not accept the fundamental nature of the Gospels, that they testify to a man in the best way that the authors could manage, then there is little sense in quibbling about this or that fact. It would be the same as if you refused to accept the letter of Poma as a history of the Incas, and demanded that the facts in it be externally verified before you did so.

Amaleq13

It seems to me what you are getting at is that it will be much easier to find claims that are reliably historical if we first assume that they are there and procede from that assumption. I think a better way to approach the stories is to refrain from making any assumptions about historicity from the beginning.

That seems to me a terribly inadequate starting description of the stories since it carries with it an implied assumption of the very historicity you intend to establish. I think a more adequate (ie less inherently biased) description of the Gospels is to say they are narratives conveying the central religious beliefs of the authors about a sacrificed/resurrected Messiah who is, in actuality, the divine entity known as the Son of God.

These stories may or may not contain claims that can be considered historically reliable and our initial understanding makes no assumptions either way. I realize this might make efforts to establish historicity more difficult but applying circular reasoning, while admittedly making the task easier, creates some problems with regard to reliability I think.

freigeister

That's great! Now that I know what your starting point is, I can enter into meaningful discussion with you. I will start by pointing out that your view of the Gospels is exactly that of mainstream Christian religion.

Koyaanisqatsi

Who was mythologized presumably by devotees of his teachings in an era when supernatural "miracles" were reportedly commonplace (not just committed by Jesus) and accepted without skepticism by the overwhelming majority of humans at the time as self-attesting evidence.

In short, no big deal. Until you get to Paul, the cult pusher if you will .

Remember when you were a kid and you were trying to impress your friends and you said some outlandish thing that you thought you heard or perhaps actually did hear and when you were challenged the response was, "It is so true! My Dad told me!"

Remember that? Extrapolate that to an entire region made up of primarily non-educated, superstititious nomadic farmers, craftsman, business owners, fishermen, etc., all baking in the desert sun all day under the oppressive rule of a certifiable sociopath, long before mass communication without the ability to read newspapers, having little or no use for critical thinking due to the fact that everyone was in some sort of cult, etc., etc. and you've got the ability to make up a myth about someone who is actually standing right in front of you and no one would question it, including the person you're making up the myth about!

Such as the passion narrative. The reality would have been (if it happened at all) that the Romans had a seditionist executed for crimes against Rome. That or a murderer, the two most typical uses of crucifixion.

Most likely, if Jesus actually existed, he would have been the leader of a group of "terrorists" to the Romans (what we would call a "freedom fighter") and probably the head of some sort of insurgency/resistance group to the occupation that also and incidentally (as far as Rome was concerned) was cult-based (anti-orthodoxy).

The reality would have had little to nothing to do with any members of the Sanhedrin conspiring with Pilate and certainly nothing to do with any religious/deity claims, or of claiming to be the "King of the Jews" (since no such title existed in Judaism and the Romans wouldn't have given two shits about some local Rabbi going around claiming to be the "King of the Jews" anymore than anyone in the Bush Cabal would care if someone went around claiming to be "President of the Fallon Gong").

So, if the Romans mocked Jesus as "King of the Jews" as claimed and put a crown of thorns on his head, then they obviously did so because they wanted to humiliate a popular local rabbi-seditionist who they were executing as an example, because he was leading others to rebel against the occupation. Other Jews; other members of his "unit."

From there you get the martyrdom of Jesus; the myths of resurrection (thereby vanquishing the enemy in classic Hellenistic symbolism); and Roman-apologetic "the victors write the history" revisions until, voila, GMark; clearly written by someone with little or no real understanding of Judaism, intent on exonerating the Romans and turning a popular martyr (whose cult no doubt continued his seditionist insurgency against Rome) into a friend of the Romans, betrayed instead by his own people, the evil and horrible "Jews" (always plural and non-specific).

Paul takes this same tact and you've got your anti-Judaic cult that is so clearly Roman in design (preaching servitude and obedience to earthly authority) that one might even argue that it was entirely concocted by Romans .

You're forgetting that no matter what, you're talking about cult members mythologizing their leader. We know the gospels cannot be historical documents, as the authors recount entire conversations that they weren't present to hear, such as Jesus with Satan in the desert.

Have you ever read any of the Reverend Moon's followers' stories about him? Or the fawning way members of the Jonestown cult (before the coolaid, of course) described how Jim Jones was a god or David Koresh was a prophet, etc.,etc.,etc.?

If you are already in the mindset that such people like the fictionalized Jesus of Nazareth exist and that a being named Jehovah, for example, "guides" your hand, then you can very easily make up whole chapters of utter nonsense that you are absolutely convinced to be the "words of God" and do so completely innocently, because that's the power of cult mentality; of believing something is true in spite of the evidence (or lack thereof).

Just read Revelation, or travel throughout the Bible belt and you'll find thousands of people telling you the most remarkable things and all of them fervently believing that what they are telling you (no matter how embellished it has become over the years of retelling) is absolutely, 100% true "I swear to GAWD" and you know damn well that maybe, maybe 1% of what they're saying even remotely happened the way they're saying it.

That's why the distinction of "historical document" is so important, as it implies a level of intelligent consideration for relating corroborative, objective facts about events that actually happened as opposed to events that could not possibly have happened so far as any author of history could have written about.

Once you dispense with the notion that the gospel authors were your high school history teachers dilligently relating facts, you have one of two choices; mythologists or propagandists.

If you think they were honest cult members, then you have to go with mythologists. If you think as I do, then you should seek immediately psychiatric care .

I mean, then you go with (Roman) propagandists.

Vorkosigan

Yup.

Actually, Mark 13 does not work by OT paralleling but by OT citation, different thing entirely. Mark constructs off the OT in two ways. First, by using OT events as frameworks for the Jesus story, and second, by creating individual verses through citation. Hence, there's a misunderstanding of what is meant by paralleling.

That said, I have discovered a set of weak paralleling in there that Dodd was not aware of. Mark 1-14 parallels the Elijah-Elisha cycle in Kings. In Mark 13 Jesus predicts the destruction of the Temple....

Jesus gives instructions to his disciples
Jehu gives instructions to his people to gather the priests of Ba'al.

no stone on another
Great stone of Temple of Ba'al thrown down

Jerusalem Temple destroyed
Temple of Ba'al destroyed

abomination standing in temple
Ba'al Temple used as latrine

There are several ways this might be coincidence or more likely -- construction by tropes -- Temples get destroyed a lot in ancient literature and the resemblences are probably common among all those destructions -- it requires a lot of people, the defenders have to be killed, the holy parts tossed away or destroyed, and the temple itself destroyed, and then the site profaned. Pretty generic, from 70 AD to Ayodha. So one need not see this parallel.

However, in the context of many other Elijah-Elisha cycle tales, it might be there.

You are correct in noting that the existence of a historical tale inside a set of parallels is prima facie evidence that some of the other parallels are also history. Unfortunately, since the alleged history has been overwritten by the OT, how will you demonstrate it without a reliable outside vector? Especially since the criteria for locating history in there are dysfunctional.

Note further that the Elijah-Elisha tales in Kings provide not only fodder for individual pericopes but the backbone that drives the tale as a whole -- the paralleling occurs at several levels. This type of paralleling was common in Hellenistic fiction, BTW. Mark is built with not only the narrative conventions but also the construction techniques of Hellenistic fiction.

It looks, from my vantage point, that Mark has incorporated the Temple's destruction into his narrative parallels -- very common, Mark is replete with allusions to plundered and destroyed Temples. Mark's hypertextuality is strongly temple-focused.

Besides, pulling in history into fiction is not at all uncommon in Hellenistic fiction -- it is how it works. Mark has done that elsewhere. Pilate is a historical figure, but there's an OT parallel for the whole mess in Mark 15:1-20, which Mark signals through his usual technique of referring to it elsewhere in the Gospel. No, I'm not telling you, saving that one for the glorious day when I publish (it's based on Weeden's new book, which should be coming out this fall). Other historical characters are treated the same way -- the chief priests and Pharisees become the priests of Ba'al in Mark's EEC parallels, a very nasty polemic. Mark imports historical context and then sets in the OT framework.

Mark does the same with Jesus. He doesn't know anything about Jesus save what he read in Paul, but he does know that Jesus was crucified, even though he doesn't know a thing about that crucifixion. So he sets it in the OT context, using Daniel 6 as the story frame, and packing it around with references to Psalm 22. But the things that happen to Jesus are the things that happen to the heroes of Hellenistic fiction. Here's a passage from the opening of my interpretation of Mark....

• In the ancient Greek novel Chaereas and Callirhoe the hero and heroine are summoned before the Great King of Persia for a trial. Callirhoe, the heroine of the novel, whose beauty is likened to that of the gods, makes a triumphant entrance into the city of Babylon to cheering crowds. The ladies of Babylon, jealous of her great beauty, send a beautiful woman of their own city to defeat her in a contest of looks, but Callirhoe wins handily.
  
  There are two trials mooted in Chaereas and Callirhoe, the first about a forged letter, the second to determine who the real husband of Callirhoe is. The second is never actually held as the Great King falls in love with Callirhoe and wants to keep her for himself. He postpones the trial while the city holds a festival, then a revolt in Egypt occurs and the novel's various protagonists all head there one way or the other.
  
  Even a short description like this makes clear that the scene of Jesus entering Jerusalem is actually composed of story elements familiar from Hellenistic novels. The triumphal entry, being taken for a divine being, the trials, the jealousy- driven enemies, the local potentate presiding over the key trial, the festival, the reappearance after a (supposed) death by crucifiction...

How do I know Mark's tale is fictional? Because at every level it is built...

verses from OT citation, Paul
details from OT paralleling, Paul
story from from OT stories
events and stories from conventions of hellenistic fiction
construction techniques of hellenistic fiction
tropes common throughout the middle east.

If you pick any one level, you can say "But there could be history in there...." And there could be. But the cumulative weight of fiction is very great, and IMHO, decisive. Mark knows nothing of any Jesus tradition. He is creating a narrative for a specific purpose, probably recruiting or baptism.

Vorkosigan

Vorkosigan

But unless you had some a priori commitment to There's History in There! why would you ever bother to go looking for history in Mark? There's no good reason, based on a study of the text iself.

I know you disagree, Ben. Everyone who is some kind of Christian disagrees. The problem is that you can't offer any reason to think that there is any history in Mark. If Mark is history, where are the reliable methods for uncovering it? If Mark knew real traditions, why would be bother to parallel some other story every time Jesus does something major? It's not like this is a sometime thing. Almost every story in Mark draws on the OT, and Mark often tells you where he got it from one way or another (and if he doesn't, that fussbudget Matthew certainly will). The few stories that are not OT in origin have a narrative function, and of course, are so totally bound up with the supernatural that they are certainly fiction -- sometimes both (as in the Gerasene Demoniac, for example, though that has OT echoes too).

Vorkosigan