bleubird

Or a parrot?

Adam

Is there some humorous connection to "bluebird" that I don't get? Like eating crow? Wild turkey?

DCHindley

Adam,

Around here you have to get used to out-of-the-bleu posts that don't seem to make any sense. They are standard issue here. You can ask what they mean by their post all you want, and they will dance about the issue and never really answer you.

Once and a good while a productive discussion results ... until it is hijacked by a member riding his or her hobby-horse. Unfortunately there are maybe a handful of members who are up to actually discussing an issue, the others driven away by the crazies.

I say, ignore the crazies if they cannot, or will not, get to the point or start to make sense at your polite request, and stay out of the crossfire between warring members. Oh yeah, continue to post well thought out messages.

Good luck!

DCH

Adam

Thanks, David.
And thanks to Michael Turton for his most excellent website, Historical Commentary on the Gospel of Mark. Google search brings up almost nothing of scholarship on the gospels, but his links for References brings up page-upon-page, including many internet links. I recognized several names from here at FRDB and found the Steven Carr link, but the links have since broken for Jeff Gibson, Doughty, and Joe Wallack (and I found out that Internet Infidels DB expired Jan. 1, 2009--but I still see Internet Infidels logo on this FRDB website). The link to Andrew Criddle is hi-jacked by a pop-off that I couldn't get out of without exiting the internet.
http://www.michaelturton.com/Mark/GMark_index.html
I also did research on ongoing Society of Biblical Literature conventions and found there is yet more movement towards recognizing the Gospel of John as historical, a position I have held for 47 years, from long before that view became popular with John A. T. Robinson's Redating the New Testament in 1975.
I also came across Robert Price's short-lived Journal of Higher Criticism. In spite of the title I did not find anything here or on the above sites about source criticism. My nearby academic library did not give indications that there has been much done recently. (On John, for example, I found mostly scholars whom I had already encompassed in my earlier researches.) Anyone know how to find a good bibliography on source-criticism of the gospels, so I can compare my results with recent scholarship?

Sheshbazzar

I am quite curious. what do you find 'as historical' about the Gospel of John?
Do you find other Gospels as being equally 'historical' ?

Adam

What's not to like?
Whoops, bad answer, at least for me. There was so much about gJohn that repelled me that I originally gave no thought to other than the Higher Critical view that only the Synoptics should be considered, maybe even little more than gMark.
I first had to establish that nothing supported the typical exclusivism that all non-Christians would go to Hell, and that the basis of Judgment was mere affirmation of faith in Jesus. After that I could build up belief in more and more, then shored up by converting to Roman Catholicism with Authority rejecting these beliefs that I hated. (But I left RC in 1992.)
I have no problem with miracles, and gJohn has less of the problem of relating physical afflictions to demonic possession. GJohn does have the problem of focussing on faith in Jesus as God, but on closer study I realized that the Discourses in gJohn derived from Nicodemus preparing a court case against Jesus, thus recording initially only what could "hang" Jesus. Other Christians get around the problem areas in gJohn by attributing it to theological reflection written decades later, but I blame distorted note-taking.
I regard later editorial flourishes in any of the gospels as not necessarily historical, but this applies more to Matthew and Mark than John.
I have already presented my major posts here (#1, #18, #18, #52, and #74) that sources underlying the four gospels are historical accounts by eyewitnesses, but see alse my four articles in Noesis. The fourth is my unique affirmation of the basic Resurrection accounts.
http://megasociety.org/noesis/181.htm#Common

Sheshbazzar

Oh. No offense intended, but personally I simply don't find anything persuasive or even inspiring in this.
As my dear old dad would have said; 'Too much dry bread, and not enough meat and mustard'. But carry on.

Toto

This board was originally the Internet Infidels Discussion Board, but was split off from that group and is now independent, but on friendly terms, with the Internet Infidels.

Doughty's website is archived at the wayback machine.

The link to Andrew Criddle's post on IIDB is here in the FRDB Archives.

The ibiblio post by Jeffrey Gibson in on the wayback machine here

There is an SBL section on the Gospel of John as history. I think there are some threads here in the archives on that section.

Nathan Poe

In other words, portions that the "eyewitness" didn't actually witness.

So many such portions can you include and still consider such a person an "eyewitness"?

Actually, it's quite simple -- happens in courtrooms all the time.

So assuming Matthew was an "eyewitness," he took it upon himself to improve on Jesus' own words.

Matthew's evaluation is looking pretty shaky at this point.

Dogfish

We'll try to control ourselves.