Orthodox_Freethinker

Lately, I've been reading Borg and Crossan. One thing that strikes me is how they assume that the deity of Christ must be a myth that evolved over time.
Their evidence for this assumption is that since Mark was the earliest Gospel and the least explicit on the divinity of Christ, Jesus must not have believed himself to be God. This is, however, a rather fuzzy argument, especially is one actually reads Mark's Gospel. For example, Jesus forgave people's sin by his own authority; not only those who sinned against him personally but those who sinned against their neighbors. This was clearly a claim to godhood given that under the Jewish tradition, only God can forgive sin. This is exactly why the Jews in Mark accuse Jesus of blasphemy.
Furthermore, in claiming to be the "Son of Man", Jesus was also claiming godhood:
"I beheld therefore in the vision of the night, and lo, one like a son of man came with the clouds of heaven, and he came even to the Ancient of days: and they presented him before him. And he gave him power, and glory, and a kingdom: and all peoples, tribes, and tongues shall serve him: his power is an everlasting power that shall not be taken away: and his kingdom shall not be destroyed." — Daniel 7:13

I honestly have no problem with Markan priority. But when it used to claim that Matthew could not have been an eye witness, that crosses the line.
Mark was a disciple of Peter and wrote down the life of Christ as Peter had taught him. Therefore, Matthew, if he did rely upon Mark, was only using the testimony of a fellow Apostle as a source. Of course, there is no real problem with this. As a journalist, I oftentimes research what other journalists have reported on a particular event before I investigate myself.
Even if I were an eye witness to an invent, that would not mean that I would not want to check the notes, film, audio, of other journalists who were present at the event in order to verify the reliability of my own recollection.
If the Gospel of Matthew merely corrected and supplemented Mark, who better qualified to do that than an Apostle of Christ?

This brings us to the purported Q document, one which we have no evidence to have actually existed. The material which Luke and Matthew share in common can be explained by Luke's reliance upon Matthew as an eye witness of Christ.
Just to review, the non-existence of Q makes good sense considering that -

A. Luke was a historian and therefore, relied upon witnesses of Jesus.

B. There is no hard evidence that Q ever existed.


As you can see, we have witnessed an 'evolution' so far in the Synoptic Gospels. Mark wrote the first Gospel, which wasn't particularly informative of a historical account, Matthew then wrote the second Gospel, which corrected Mark with his eye-witness as an Apostle, and then Luke wrote his Gospel utilizing Matthew as an eye-witness source.
Does this development in any way make the Gospel message less accurate? Only if the 2005 Microsoft Encarta makes my 1995 edition false. This is not an evolution of mythology, given that the Synoptic Gospels were writtin within the generation of Christ and the changes from one Synoptic to another were slight, but the effort of each Synoptic writer to make his Gospel more historically accurate than the last. For further reference, please read the first chapter of Luke's Gospel.

We've now covered the Synoptics. But what about John? Is it so much different from the Synoptics that we must discard it as historically inaccurate? Most scholars would agree that the author of John wrote his Gospel with the others already available. John's intention of writing his Gospel, therefore, was to supplement and compliment what the Synoptics had written with his own eye witness testimony instead of merely re-writing what they had done before him. What evidence do we have of Johannean authorship?

"The tradition is unanimous, from the earliest records that we have. There are some small variations in the wording and the emphasis, but there are no real contradictions. In this case, we can even trace our knowledge of the information back to John the Apostle, by way of Irenaeus by way of Polycarp. This alone is enough to establish John as the author. However, we actually have more information, from the text itself. From John 21:20-24 we know that the curious figure of "The disciple whom Jesus loved," or "the other disciple" wrote the Gospel of John. He is mentioned several times (Jn 13:23, 18:15-16, 19:26, 20:2-8 and 21:20-24). There are many clues that lead us to believe that this is John the apostle. First, we must realize that this disciple was present at the last supper, and shows a very close relationship to Jesus.

When he had said this, Jesus deeply troubled and testified, "Amen, amen, I say to you, one of you will betray me." The disciples looked at one another, at a loss as to whom he meant. One of his disciples, the one whom Jesus loved, was reclining at Jesus's side. So Simon Peter nodded to him to find out whom he meant. He said to him, "Master, who is it?" Jesus answered, "It is the one to whom I hand the morsel after I have dipped it." So he dipped the morsel and took it and handed it to Judas, son of Simon the Iscariot. (John 13:21-26).

This indicates that the title, "The disciple whom Jesus loved" was not merely an honorific. It indicated the real relationship between Jesus and the disciple. That means that the disciple is one of the apostles, and probably one of the closest apostles. Additionally Mark 14:17 (and parallels in Mt 26:20, Lk 22:14) indicate that no one except the apostles were at the last supper. All of the apostles are named in the gospel except for John, son of Zebedee, James, son of Zebedee, Matthew, James, son of Alphaeus, Bartholomew, Thaddaeus, and Simon the Zealot. From the synoptic gospels, it is understood that the closest apostles to Jesus are Peter and the sons of Zebedee. For example, these three were his companions for the vigil at Gethsemane (Mk 14:33 and parallels) The disciple whom Jesus loved cannot be Peter, because Peter and the disciple are mentioned together in the above passages. He cannot reasonably be James, because James was martyred no later than A.D. 44 (Acts 12:2). This argument from the gospel itself falls short of proof, but it does complement well the tradition, which is sufficient proof by itself.

However, there is one substantial caveat. It appears that more than one person had a hand in this Gospel. The Prologue has a different style than the rest of the gospel. The Epilogue was written after the death of the primary author. Within the gospel, there is some clunkiness that a single writer would have been unlikely to create. For example, there are two endings to the public ministry (Jn 10:40-42 and Jn 12:37-43), and two endings for the last supper discourse of Jesus (Jn 14:31 and 18:1). It appears that the current gospel is a combination of shorter, homogeneous originals.

So, we have proof that John the apostle wrote the gospel, and that the gospel was written by more than one person. How do we resolve this apparent contradiction? We must understand that the people of this time had a slightly different definition for author than we do. When they said author, they meant the source of the tradition, not the person who actually held the pen. To know that this is a reasonable interpretation, look at Jn 22:22, "Pilate answered, 'What I have written, I have written.' " Here Pilate is saying that he wrote the inscription on Jesus's cross, but what he means is that he is responsible for the inscription. That he did not actually do the writing is clear from the previous several verses as well as the very low probability that a governor of a province would have a direct hand in the execution of a convict.

In conclusion, John is the primary source of this Gospel. If this was a modern science paper, we would call him the first author. He told those around him what he remembered of Jesus. It is probable that much of this was written down by his disciples while he was alive, but the Gospel was not put in its final form until after his death. Some of the clunkiness could have been smoothed out by asking him what he remembered, but he was no longer around to ask. Instead, the authors were cautious and kept the somewhat contradictory material in rather than risk losing an authentic tradition."
http://people.ucsc.edu/~mgrivich/The...dingtoJohn.htm

"Attestation of Johannine authorship is found as early as Irenaeus. Eusebius reports that Irenaeus received his information from Polycarp, who in turn received it from the apostles directly. Although Irenaeus’ testimony has been assailed on critical grounds (since he received the information as a child, and may have been mistaken as to which John wrote the gospel), since all patristic writers after Irenaeus do not question apostolic authorship, criticism must give way to historical probability. The list of fathers include Tertullian, Clement of Alexandria, Origen, etc. Further, the Muratorian Canon suggests that John was given the commission to write this gospel after Andrew received a vision indicating that he would do so. If one were to sift out the possible accretions in this statement, the bare fact of Johannine authorship is not disturbed. Finally, the anti-Marcionite Prologue also affirms Johannine authorship.

In countering this external evidence are two considerations. (1) There would be a strong motivation on the part of patristic writers to suggest authorship by an apostle. Further, the internal evidence, when compared with the synoptics, strongly suggests John as the leading candidate. But this is off-set by the remarkably early documentary testimony of Johannine authorship4 as well as early patristic hints (Ignatius, Justin, Tatian). Further, P52—the earliest fragment for any NT book—contains portions of John 18:31-33 and 37-38 and is to be dated as early as 100 CE5; and the Papyrus Egerton 2, which is to be dated at about the same time, draws on both John and synoptics for its material.6 Although the early patristic hints and the early papyri do not explicitly affirm Johannine authorship, they do illustrate its early and widespread use, an implicit testimony to its acceptance by the church. Indeed, there seems never to have been a time when this gospel bore any name other than John’s.

(2) There is some evidence of an early martyrdom for John (based on Mark 10:39) which, assuming a late date for the production of this gospel, would preclude Johannine authorship. However, the earliest patristic evidence for this supposition is from the fifth century (Philip of Side and the Syrian martyrology of 411 CE), from sources which show themselves to be unreliable as historical guides in other matters. Further, in our dating of John’s Gospel, even an early martyrdom would not preclude Johannine authorship, though it would preclude Johannine authorship of the Apocalypse.

In conclusion, the external evidence is quite strong for Johannine authorship, being widely diffused and early."
http://www.bible.org/page.asp?page_id=1328


John's Gospel isn't different from the Synoptics for being a 'later mythology'. The convergence is explained by John, Jesus' beloved disciple, merely providing whatever facts that the Synoptics had missed:

“Last of all John, perceiving that the external facts had been set forth in the Gospels, at the insistence of his disciples and with the inspiration of the Spirit, composed a spiritual Gospel."
Clement of Alexandria


Peace.

Chris Weimer

Try reading that a little closer. No where does Daniel say that the son of man (actually an Aramaic idiom for a normal human being) is equal to God, but that God gave him power. In fact, that's an argument against Jesus being God.

Do you have evidence of any of this? Have you worked on any source-criticism of the gospels?

Possible, but not probable. It's your burden here, bud.

No, in fact, it can't be so easily explained. Many debates are raging over Q/Farrer Luke, and personally I've been persuaded more and more to the Q camp (note that I started out with Luke using Matthew as you posit). However, you can't make a judgement call here yet.

Evidence?

There's no hard evidence that Jesus existed either. However, that doesn't mean that he didn't. We're talking about probabilities here.

If Matthew was an eyewitness, then why does he report on things he couldn't have seen (such as Massacre of the Infants and Jesus' Escape to Egypt etc...) and if Luke was an historian then why doesn't he use Matthew's eyewitness testimony? Obviously, if the "historian" didn't use the material, it must not be very accurate material, is it.

I'm not sure how this is relevant here.

Two things on this one: 1st, the only real gospel which is likely to have been written 40 years after Christ's death is Mark, and as we said, it's not very accurate; 2nd, the additions to the later works to "historicise" it actually have the markings of later embellishments and mythology especially noted in Matthew.

Irrelevant. Furthermore, many argue that it's a later addition. How do you answer those charges?

If Matthew was an eyewitness, and John was an eyewitness, then why are they so far apart?

As for your huge Johannine cut and paste, I'll skip on that and let someone else who has handled John, but I just wanted to point out some problems. 1st, John who? Is John the Elder who quite possibly wrote 1-3 John the same person who wrote the Gospel of John? Given its such late date, it is unfair to assume that most of it went directly back to the Apostle John, a man who has no hard evidence of existence (there is no real link, IIRC, between the Elder John and the Disciple John). And finally, testimony by those who seemed to have pulled their facts out of nowhere is not solid evidence. In that case, we would know that one man named Homer wrote the Iliad, the Odyssey, and all the Homeric Hymns to the Gods, right? It's one of those "He talked to this guy who talked to this guy who talked to this guy who saw Jesus." Doesn't work at all in a legal sense nor in an academic sense.

Orthodox_Freethinker

It is an argument for Jesus being the Son of the Father.

I am sorry, but this is where I must stop you. In order to intellegently discuss the meaning of Jesus, you must first accept that a historical Jesus existed. Most scholars agree that Jesus existed and that the available evidence supports his past existence.

Scholarly opinions on the Jesus Myth
by Christopher Price
http://www.bede.org.uk/price1.htm


Early Historical Documents on Jesus Christ
http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/08375a.htm


"Arguments Against the Jesus Myth
Josephus provides reliable evidence about the historical Jesus. Although most opponents of the Jesus Myth idea agree that Christian scribes corrupted the manuscripts containing the Testimonium Flavianum, they point out that most modern scholars believe that the core of the Testimonium is authentic and constitutes a reliable first-century non-Christian reference to the historical Jesus.[7]. The second reference to Jesus in Josephus’ Antiquities, is deemed completely authentic by most scholars.[8] The supposed "silence" of other contemporary non-Christian sources is explained by the relative unimportance of the historical Jesus at the time as viewed by Romans, Greeks, and most Jews.

See also: Josephus on Jesus
Pauline evidence of a historical Jesus. Opponents of the Jesus Myth idea claim that the occasional and epistolary nature of Paul’s correspondence are sufficient explanations for the lack detail about the historical Jesus. Unlike the gospels, Paul’s letters were written in response to specific problems unrelated to the details of the life of Jesus. Moreover, despite their occasional nature, Paul’s letters contain a number of references to the historical Jesus (See, e.g., Gal. 1:19, 3:16, 4:4, Rom. 1:3, 3:1, 15:8, and 1 Cor. 11:23-25, 15:4).[9] Attempts by advocates of the Jesus Myth idea to explain these references as metaphorical or otherwise not references to a truly historical Jesus are seen by opponents to rest on questionable translations, to be ad hoc and ultimately unpersuasive.[10][11]
The Gospels are ancient biographies and impart at least some historical information about Jesus. Though conceding that the gospels may contain some creativity and midrash, opponents of the Jesus Myth idea argue that the gospels are more akin to ancient biographies. (See What Are the Gospels? A Comparison With Graeco-roman Biography, by Richard A. Burridge). Ancient biographies attempted to impart historical information about historical figures, but were not comprehensive and could include legendary developments about their subject matter. Nevertheless, as ancient biographies, they contain sufficient historical information about Jesus to establish his historicity. In fact, many scholars believe that the gospels are generally reliable sources of information about the historical Jesus.[12]
Not so parallel pagan myths. The supposed parallels with pagan myths has gained little traction in the academic community. The Jesus Mysteries has been criticized for heavy reliance on out-dated secondary sources and for confusing the issue of causation (just who was borrowing from whom).[13] Others have questioned the nature of the supposed dying-and-rising pagan saviors and their similarity to the Gospel accounts of Jesus.[14]

In addition to these points, opponents of the Jesus Myth idea have made the following arguments:
Silence of Christianity’s opponents. Professor Robert Van Voorst asks why, “if Christians invented the historical Jesus around the year 100, no pagans and Jews who opposed Christianity denied Jesus’ historicity or even questioned it.� (The Study of Jesus Outside the New Testament, page 15).
The best explanation of origins. According to Professor Van Voorst, advocates of the Jesus Myth idea have consistently failed to offer a better explanation for the origins of Christianity than the existence of Jesus as its founding figure: “The hypotheses they have advanced, based on an idiosyncratic understanding of mythology, have little independent corroborative evidence to commend them to others. (Ibid., page 16).
Insufficient time for legendary development. Historian A.N. Sherwin-White speaks for some scholars in Roman Society and Roman Law in the New Testament where he contends that mythicism as an explanation of the origins of Christianity is implausible because the time was too short for the formation of myth in the relevant cultural milieu."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jesus_m...the_Jesus_Myth

Peace.

Vorkosigan

Thanks, but I've been intelligently discussing this for several years now, and I don't accept that the historical Jesus was in some way the founder of the cult that today bears his title. Chris Price's piece is bog-standard apologetics which does not really approach the problem in any depth, cites people who are not scholars (Will Durant) and dismisses published scholars such as GA Wells as non-scholars. Note that Price's piece does not even raise the issue of methodology, which lies at the crux of any attempt to establish that the Jesus of the Gospels was in some way a real human being.

You will also note that when people dismiss Jesus Mythicism, they invariably do with simpleminded assertions like Bultman's

• Of course the doubt as to whether Jesus really existed is unfounded and not worth refutation. No sane person can doubt that Jesus stands as founder behind the historical movement whose first distinct stage is represented by the Palestinian community.

"No sane person?" Goodacre has complained about this same problem with Q. People employ inflated rhetoric rather than argument (sadly, there are no arguments on Price's page)......

Where in Mark does Jesus forgive sins by his own authority?

BTW, sin could be forgiven by humans. As Sanders (1995, p. 213) notes, to say this was not blasphemy. In the Prayer of Nabonius from the Dead Sea Scrolls, it says "I was afflicted with an evil ulcer for seven years...and a gazer [exorcist? healer?] pardoned my sins. He was a Jew." (Vermes 1981, p66-7). The relationship between sin and sickness was well established in ancient Judaism (Fredriksen 1988, p105).

Perhaps, although Mark can also be read as adoptionist, a position taken by several scholars, and myself as well. Whoever wrote Mark, busy inventing the "historical" Jesus out of the OT and several other ancient texts, was unaware of any tradition that Jesus was the born son of God.

Vorkosigan

Vorkosigan

ROFL. Ah, I love this old, circular, chestnut.

JoeWallack

JW:
Priceless.



Joseph

"Remember, they don't take Jews or Muslims in Heaven. DeVesus, He's Everywhere you want him to be."

http://www.errancywiki.com/index.php/Main_Page

Orthodox_Freethinker

There was no such thing as 'plagiarism' in the ancient world. Matthew utilized his knowledge as an Apostle to correct and expand Mark. There is nothing wrong with that, if he was qualified to do so.

Peace.

Orthodox_Freethinker

Just like news reporters do today, each Evangelist reported the life of Christ from a different perspective. Matthew emphasizes Jesus as the Jewish Messiah, Mark emphasizes Jesus as the suffering servant, Luke emphasizes Him as the savior of all people and John emphasizes Him as the eternal Son of God. All four of these themes are in all four of the Gospels but in different levels of emphasis, depending on what the author felt compelled to report.

Peace.

Orthodox_Freethinker

The Essenes did not represent mainstream Judaism. Nonetheless, that still does not mean it wasn't heretical for a man to forgive another's sins.

The Gospel of Mark was written within the generation of Christ and therefore, it is highly unlikely that he 'invented' the historical Jesus. The Epistles of Paul alone provide early historical testimony that Jesus at least existed, even if you disagree with Paul's theology.

Peace.

Amaleq13

Where do you find an identification of "mainstream Judaism" in the 1st century?