EarlDoherty

Are you saying that a given methodology should always produce the identical results?

Mainstream New Testament scholars used the same basic methodology for decades, and did they come up with a universal opinion on the nature of Jesus? The only common factor in that wildly diverse result was a common, unexamined assumption that a Jesus actually existed.

Something worth pondering, no?

Earl Doherty

EarlDoherty

I hardly think it is safe to assume any such thing. Papias’ description of his “Mark” (as reported by Eusebius) virtually rules out that it could have been our canonical Mark, or even any version of a narrative Gospel of Mark.

First, it is a commonplace that Mark contains very few sayings of Jesus at all. Is this all that Peter could remember? Would Papias say this of a Gospel which contained such a paucity of sayings by Jesus?

Second, would Papias writing sometime between 110 and 140, and composing a work called The Sayings of the Lord Interpreted, fail to possess a copy of such a Gospel, which his language and failure to reproduce a single Markan saying (we can tell this because neither Eusebius nor other quoters from Papias so much as hint that his work contained any ‘interpretation’ of a Gospel saying) clearly indicates? All Papias tells of his so-called Mark is that it was a collection of sayings and anecdotes which another person, perhaps himself second hand, told him existed and was being attributed to a companion of the legendary apostle Peter. He doesn’t even say that this document was named “Mark”, merely that someone of that name was reputed to be the compiler. (The same remarks apply to his "Matthew" which was said to be limited entirely to sayings.)

Third, the reference to a lack of “order” virtually rules out the narrative Gospel of Mark. (In what way could that Gospel be seen as not reflecting the ‘order’ of Jesus’ ministry or lacking proper ‘arrangement’?) Rather, what is suggested is a loose compilation of sayings and anecdotes, probably something along the lines of the Q document which contained sayings and a few miracle and controversy stories reflective of some community’s activities. The efforts of scholars to try to make the canonical Gospel of Mark fit Papias’ remarks is quite amusing (see Note 115 of The Jesus Puzzle).

The level of discussion on some threads of this board has become abysmal lately. Too many defenders of Jesus’ historicity are making too many blithe statements while knowing too little of what they are talking about. (Incidentally, what happened to Rick Sumner?)

Earl Doherty

rob117

1) We do not know anything of what was in Papias' work beyond what has been directly quoted by Eusebius and Irenaeus. To say that he does not quote from Mark is another argument from a dubious silence. Why should we expect Eusebius or Irenaeus to quote from Papias' interpretation of Mark? It was not their purpose to reproduce all previous works in their entirety.

2) I'm reading Mark now. It's a narrative, but it contains plenty of sayings. Papias does not say Mark is a sayings gospel; rather he describes it as containing sayings and doings.

3) The charges that Papias was responding to was that Mark must have been incorrect because it contradicted the order of some other gospel. To this Papias responded by conceding that Mark was indeed defective in order, but that it was accurate in content. It is likely that Papias, being a resident of Asia Minor (and affiliated with the mysterious "Presbyter"), came from a community that thought of gJohn as the Gospel. He was likely defending Mark from skepticism within his own community.

Incidentally, I am curious if you realize that with your work you are in effect attacking the legitimacy of a field of study that is not your own, and are asking readers to believe a popular book like The Jesus Puzzle over two centuries careful critical research. Do you understand why someone such as myself, who does tend to put faith (if you want to call it that) in the process of peer review, would be so skeptical of the Christ myth theory, which rarely if ever has appeared in peer-reviewed literature?

Doug Shaver

I, for one, fully understand what faith of any kind can do to critical thinking.

aa5874

But, Papias's Mark was written as early as the time of Philo not 70-100 CE.

Church History 2.15.1-2 So gMark was written some time around the time of Simon Magus or around the time of the Emperor Cladius circa 41-54 CE based on external evidence.

And again, "Church History" 2.16.1-2 See http://www.newadvent.org

The internal and external evidence places gMark during the time of Philo, up to or around the middle of the 1st century.

EarlDoherty

This is where common sense comes in. I know that it is not in the list of official methodologies, but you should try it some time. As I say in both books, not a single one of the over a dozen fragments preserved from Papias’ Sayings of the Lord Interpreted includes any saying from any canonical Gospel. And if Papias had actually discussed anything from the Gospels we know, there can be absolutely no doubt that Eusebius, having Papias’ work in front of him, would have thrown a spotlight on it. If sayings and deeds of Jesus as found in Mark and Matthew had been a feature of Papias’ work, later commentators like Philip of Side would hardly have limited themselves to the often ridiculous and repugnant things Papias does have to say.

I didn’t say Mark had no sayings, I said he had relatively very few. In fact, the phrase “the paucity of sayings in Mark” is a commonplace in New Testament study, even among those scholars you like to appeal to. If Papias believed that Mark was dependent on Peter’s memory, how could he not wonder why Mark would not have included the “upon this rock” saying found in Matthew?

As I said, Papias’ language rules it out. He can discuss what “the elder” had to say about a collection by ‘Mark’ but not contribute a single opinion of his own based on his own reading of a Markan text, or a Matthean one? If he possessed documents containing sayings and deeds of Jesus as recorded by Jesus’ very followers, would he have been likely to disparage such written documents in favour of oral tradition, as he does at the end of Eusebius’ quote from his Prologue? “For I assumed that what is derived from books does not profit me as much as what is derived from a living and abiding voice.” These are common sense conclusions. If Papias (especially at your preferred date of 110) already knew of a Mark and Matthew that were equivalent to our canonicals, how is it that Justin in Rome a few decades later knows of no such authorial figures for his “memoirs of the apostles”?

You’ve pulled all of this out of the air. Papias’ reported statement makes no such implications. And there is a notable lack of common sense in regard to your claim about John. If Papias’ community used the Gospel of John, why did he not make mention of it, or quote sayings from it, in his work along with Mark and Matthew, and why would Eusebius not have reported that mention? This sort of thing is a good example of the kind of measures traditional NT scholarship has recourse to in order to preserve what they want the documentary record to be saying. And it’s a good reason why your next justification for believing what you would like to believe lacks all dependability…

Well, that’s what it boils down to, doesn’t it? When all else fails (and it has), simply make the timeworn appeal to authority. The majority opinion for so long has to be correct, and any newcomer with a different approach and conclusion must be wrong. Unfortunately, NT research itself is constantly in the process of overturning previous generations of scholarship’s opinions, sometimes dramatically. Shouldn’t the previous majority opinion have been correct since it was itself based on long periods of “careful critical research”? Platonism reigned in the ancient world for almost a thousand years, subjected to very careful intellectual research--do we still believe in a dualistic universe? Does nothing ever change significantly in any discipline of study, and is that your version of the scientific method? Of course, where religion is concerned, we know that other, non-scientific, forces are working to preserve the status quo and resist any disturbing re-evaluation of ‘received wisdom.’

You are “sceptical of the Christ myth theory” you say. Shouldn’t scepticism be based on a dispassionate reading of the ideas and arguments on both sides? Have you actually read The Jesus Puzzle and are sceptical because you recognize and have proved to your satisfaction that my arguments and presentation are unsound?

I thought not.

Earl Doherty

rob117

Yes, the results of NT scholarship are constantly being overturned and re-evaluated. The difference is that they are being done so by those within the field. You are not within the field, although you are within a related field. This does not mean you a priori have nothing to contribute, it simply means that before you can be taken seriously you must systematically demolish the existing methodology and conclusions, one by one, and be convincing when you attempt to do so. Your attempts so far are not convincing, neither to an amateur like myself, nor, apparently to those who are accredited to do this type of study. Do you have any training in redaction criticism? Are you aware of the methodologies used by professional text critics to detect interpolations and forgeries? From what I have read of your treatment of Ignatius, you make no reference to the criteria being used to distinguish between authentic epistles and forgeries; rather, your logic appears to be along the lines of, "If some of them can be forgeries, why can't they all be?" Has it occurred to you that maybe the reason you do not produce peer-reviewed literature on Jesus is that the process of peer-review, rather than being inherently hostile to new ideas, has simply weeded out your work as fundamentally flawed on an epistemological level?

Food for thought: Here's the Wikipedia article on you.

Do you have anything better than arguments from silence?

First, I don't think Papias' Matthew is canonical Matthew, as his description of this Matthew (as a sayings collection w/interpretation written in Hebrew or Aramaic) is significantly different from our Matthew. I recognize that, for the most part, the gospels circulated anonymously before the late 2nd century. And the false attributions of two of the gospels by the later church to Matthew and John are understandable, as these are figures who the gospels indicate knew Jesus during his lifetime; this would serve to give the texts credibility that they otherwise lack.

However, the Anchor Bible commentary on Mark gives a good argument as to why this gospel was probably written by someone named Mark-- because John Mark is an incredibly minor character in the NT, and if one were going to falsely attribute a gospel to an NT character, one would pick someone much more prominent and closer to Jesus. Indeed, there is no guarantee that this Mark is in fact John Mark, as Marcus was an extremely common name throughout the Roman Empire. Thus, if tradition attributes a text to a Mark, this attribution is inherently more likely than attributing such a text to a Matthew or a John. Given all this, are we to assume that there were two anonymous works circulating attributed to two different Marks who may or may not have been the Mark(s) mentioned in Acts and 1 Peter?

Additionally, late gospels written in the second century have the distinguishing feature that they are fully pseudonymous (such as the Gospels of Peter, Thomas, and Judas), rather than simply anonymous (like the canonical gospels).

Lastly, whether or not the Mark mentioned by Papias is canonical Mark is irrelevant as to the c.70 date, as this can be sustained on the internal evidence of the gospel alone (ex post facto prophecies of the Jewish war and failed prophecies of the immanent parousia).

PhilosopherJay

Hi Rob117,

The Scholastics and the Humanists of the 15th and 16th centuries were rival schools of scholars using different methodologies to solve different problems. The Scholastics were interested in reconciling contradictions between ancient and Christian Philosophy and Theology. The Humanists were interested in creating good citizens and stable cities as existed in ancient times. The Scholastics generally did not consider Humanist works as vigorous scholarship and the Humanists felt that the Scholastics were wasting time and energy debating trivial points.

The Mythological Jesus writers are committed to a different program than the Bible Studies writers. They see fundamental questions like the dating of text and the existence of Jesus as unsettled, and questions about shades of meaning of terms used by Jesus as trivial. On the other hand, Biblical Studies Writers see fundamental questions as settled and find questions like which manuscript contains a certain word or not as exciting.

I think the rising field of Mythological Jesus scholarship will grow until it becomes dominant in universities and on the street, but I do not see Biblical Studies as willing or wanting to have anything to do with it until then.

Warmly,

Philosopher Jay

aa5874

You may be very wrong.

The author of gMark may have simply used some other source and copied the very same information in his writing. gMark could have been written as late as the very first time it was mentioned by name by some credible source.

The "Memoirs of the Apostle" was mentioned before gMark was mentioned and appears to contain some information found in gMark.

Based on Justin Martyr there was no gospel called "according to Mark" up to the middle of the 2nd century. Justin made not one reference to a gospel written by such a character.

The so-called prophecies in gMark is not evidence that gMark was written between 70-100 CE. You really don't know when gMark was written.

You just guessed.

mufasa0222

Hey rob117, I just wanted to jump in with a plug for Earl Doherty. I too had some misgivings about his work as he was "not within the field." But when I did some checking around, I found that some heavyweights within the field were profoundly impressed with his work. For example, the world renowned Ph.D of History, Richard Carrier, says that Earl's work has actually shifted his view of Jesus' historicity [paraphrasing] from leaning toward the view that he probably existed to now leaning toward the view that he probably didn't exist (I can't post with links, yet. If you Google "Richard Carrier Earl Doherty," it's in the "Jesus Puzzle" link). Or again, let's take Robert Price, of whom I'm sure you have heard, as he is a Jesus Seminar heavyweight (in more ways than one, ), as well as editor of the Journal of Higher Criticism, as well as a professor of theology and scriptural studies at Johnnie Coleman Theological Seminary. In a clip on YouTube (Again, I can't post the link yet. If you go to YouTube and search "Robert Price," the clip is "Robert Price Part 1"), he has this to say about Earl's work:

"Another book you might want to look out for, I don't think it's on Amazon quite yet, is by Earl Doherty, and it's a double-size expanded version of his great book, The Jesus Puzzle, and this one is called [Jesus] Neither God Nor Man, and it is really super. This man has just this incredible x-ray vision into the text. I've studied the New Testament from various perspectives for decades, and I'm reading this guy and I'm thinking, 'What an idiot I am! Why did I never see this? Why did I never think of that?' Just astonishing stuff. Some may object and carp that, 'Well this can't be much; he had to resort to publishing his own book.' Yeah, well so did Hume. Enough said."

With these heavyweights on the record as saying Earl's work is more than sound, I myself don't really care if some twerp sitting in his/her editorial cubicle never sent Earl's work out to some other twerps in their respective cubicles to review it and send it back to twerp #1. In the end, it's my own take on things that I go with; I'm 10 chapters in to Jesus Neither God Nor Man, and I, like Price, though I have a Master of Divinity degree and have researched some of these issues before, am constantly saying, "What an idiot I am! Why did I never see this?"

Art