Juststeve

Dog-on:

The evidence that Matthew and Luke found the baptism embarrassing is that they did not report it in the straight forward way that Mark did, they tweaked the story to reduce the embarrassment associated with having Jesus go to someone else to have his sins washed away. Most of the mythers recognize that as embarrassment in Matthew and Luke. And, of course the embarrassment was associated with who they thought Jesus was. What else would if be associated with? Call that theology if you wish.

Steve

dog-on

Sheshbazzar

Of course 1) and 2) are not the only possible explanations.
3) would be; The Gospel of Mark was written first. It had been circulated and its content was already well known and well accepted.
Matthew, Luke, and John were not able to retract Mark's tale, thus were by circumstances already beyond their control, impelled to put their own spin on it.

Doesn't make any of it factual or true.

hjalti

Abe, you seem to think (and I think it's a reasonable opinion) that there was some cult followers of John the baptist who were in compitition with the followers of Jesus.

If that's the case, then we're in real trouble regarding the historicity of this account. Why? Because we just can't assume that only the Christians made up stories.

We have these three scenarios:

1. Followers of John came up with a story where Jesus is humble and is baptized by John. The author of Mk "fixes" the story. (similar to the guards and the theft of the body of Jesus).

2. Mk simply made up the account, because in it, John is just announcing the coming of Jesus, and John can't stress enough that Jesus is greater.

3. Jesus was actually baptized by John. The author of Mk "fixes" the story.

I can't see how you can choose between these scenarios with the level of certainty that you would deride those who choose another scenrio.

Sheshbazzar

There is also a little problem with Matthew, Luke, and John's personal integrity here. If they believed that 'Mark' had written a god inspired true, accurate, and factual account of the baptism, how could they ever justify making a revision of his account?

There is the underlying question of which if any of these writers were present and eye witnesses to any of these events, or ever personally heard any of the 'conversations' that they 'reported'.
(Are we to believe that the 'apostle' 'Luke' was present 'on that pinnacle of the temple' (Lu 4:13) to hear and to record this alleged 'conversation' betwixt Satan and Jebus word for word?)
If he wasn't personally there, where did he get it from? My bet would be, that as a -fiction writer-, he simply creatively pulled it out of his ass.







.

Juststeve

Shesh:

I have no reason to think that Matthew Luke or John thought that Mark was God inspired or inerrant. Inerrancy is a pretty recent idea in Christian thought and pretty much limited to the wacko branch even today. What most people who think there was an historical Jesus think is that Mark wrote first and other Gospel writers wrote Gospels with a combination of Mark's material and material they gleaned from elsewhere.

Luke tells you as much in the beginning of his Gospel. He doesn't say that he was inspired or anything like that. He says he was aware of other written accounts, he made further investigation, and wrote what he believed was the case.

If you don't like the implications of Luke considering other sources, making an investigation and then writing his Gospel, you can just call him a liar, but if that's your best argument it isn't very good.

Steve

Sheshbazzar

But that is not the essence of my observation. Which was that ''Matthew' Luke' and 'John' did not respect the account given by 'Mark' enough to leave well enough alone. (and none of them were any more of a witness to, or privy to the actual events or alleged conversations than 'Mark', the original gospel composer.)
Would you like to hazard a guess as to from where 'Luke' gleaned 4:3-12 ?
In other words 'Luke' admits that he wasn't present or an eyewitness to anything that he writes about, and that he never personally actually heard -any- of those word for word 'conversations' he reports. And...he wasn't 'inspired' to write them either. In other words he was just passing on a popular contemporary 'urban legend' embellished with a -lot- of made up conversations.
I am not calling him a liar, I am saying that he was a only a hack writer who 'borrowed' from the works of others to compose another in a series of highly fictional accounts then popular with contemporary tastes.

Toto

I feel no need to call Luke a liar, but I am puzzled as to why Juststeve thinks that this is such a bad argument. Christian apologists typically hold this idea up as an unthinkable alternative, but why should someone arguing from a secular point of view think that self-proclaimed Christians never lie?

And "Luke" does claim to have investigated the history, but if he were actually interested in presenting a case based on real history, would he or she not have listed his sources and vouched for their accuracy?

blastula

So then you agree MJ hasn't been proven or confirmed conclusively?

I think you're confusing me with someone else. I've used "imo" once, and where have I doubted anyone's honesty?

Which, again, doesn't confirm MJ.

All that doesn't convince me because stories of real people are known to contain myth or legend.

And you know, since people then (and now) believed ghosts are real, someone who knew an actual Jesus in person could have believed he was the child of a ghost. (Though I do believe that was a later myth by someone who didn't know Jesus, because it's easier to idealize someone you never met than someone you have - most people aren't that impressive in person.)

That's a matter of opinion.

Juststeve

Toto:

I think calling Luke a liar is a bad argument because it's an all purpose argument that could be applied to any question in ancient history, and many other questions as well. Imagine this conversation:

Guy one: Socrates never existed.

Guy two: Yes he did, we have Plato's word for it.

Guy one: Plato is a liar.

Guy one: Well, we have Xenophon's word as well.

Guy two: He's a liar too.

The your sources are all liars, or may be liars argument can be applied to any offer of proof. That's why I don't like it absent some good reason for thinking that, in this case, Luke was lying.

Steve

P.S.

A bit of anecdotal evidence. In the 30+ years I have been trying law suits I have encountered many witnesses who testified falsely. The vast majority were mistaken, not lying, although lying sometimes happens.