spin

Perhaps if you twist the vile verse even more you can crack it.


spin

Steven Carr

And obviously if you have a recent person that you compare with Socrates and Pythagoras, you would never name him. But we all know he meant Jesus. Who else was known as king of the Jews by non-Christians?

Johnny Skeptic

Please be nice, folks. Posturing is not productive. If you want to make ad hominem attacks, please start your own thread. If you please, let's reserve this thread for evidence only.

Solo

Are you suggesting (as the spun out twit does) that Jesus Christ in some form of pre-crucified state known to the presumed audience/readers is not implied by the grammatical structure of the verse ?

I have not said 'definitely': all I say is that it is the simplest explanation for 1) a sudden historical appearance of a name associated with sacrifice and martyrdom that exercises mystery seekers and the end-of-the-world seers in Paul's time and 2) a generation or two later its confirmation in a series of religious romaces, connecting the name with a figure active within a geographical area and within a moreless set timeframe.

...and, shucks, all by the name of Jesus


Of course .........I am sure that someone, somewhere, eventually, will be impressed.

...for your sins, and on the cross kinda, forgot that part didn't ya ? :huh:


You are welcome.

Jiri

ApostateAbe

I think the answer to that would be that there is already enough evidence in the authentic Pauline letters to suggest that Paul thought Jesus was a human being, such as his birth, Jewishness, the words of his prayer, his descent from David, his ministry, his teachings, his apocalypticism, his betrayal on the night of the Passover, his crucifixion at the hands of the rulers of this age, his burial, his resurrection.

Yes. There is little doubt that Paul had ambitions to be a Christian leader, and to do that you need to claim that you are getting your instructions directly from God.
Yes. Anything that is probably not is also possibility. I think in terms of a probability spectrum. In Biblical scholarship, a soft science at best, almost every claim has to be placed near the center and away from the ends of the spectrum. If the evidence suggests that the gospel of Mark "probably" originated circa 70, then that is the date to be favored until good evidence supports another date.

Van Voorst expressed that Wells claimed two things about the origin of Christianity, and they should not be mixed together. Toto made the same mistake, so maybe Van Voorst was only unclear. I copied the text so that you would not make the same mistakes Toto made.

* Second, Wells argues that Christians invented the figure of Jesus when they wrote gospels outside Palestine around 100. Not only is this dating far too late for Mark (which was probably written around the year 70), Matthew, and Luke (both of which probably date to the 80s), it cannot explain why the Gospel references to details about Palestine are so plentiful and mostly accurate.

Those two things are:
1) Wells argued that Christians invented the figure of Jesus when they wrote the gospels outside Palestine.
2) Wells argued that Christians invented the figure of Jesus when they wrote the gospels around 100 CE.

Van Voorst attacks them both.
1) The theory cannot explain why the Gospel references to Palestine are so plentiful and mostly accurate.
2) The dating is too late for Mark (he does not explain why he thinks this, though I can think of a few good reasons off the top of my head).

I don't mean to seem like a dick about this, so I apologize if that is how I am coming off. I am trying to make the arguments more clear.

Yes, the silence does not do much for HJ, but it is not a complete silence. It takes only one reference to Jesus to make a historicity claim probable, and we have plenty.

Good point, but we know that Christianity had many critics, as seen on the inside and on the outside of the New Testament. For example, we find evidence of "mockers" who mocked Christians for adhering to Jesus even after his apocalyptic prophecies apparently failed (2 Peter 2:3-8).
You are right about that. Van Voorst should not have merely appealed to authority.

You are right about that, too. Van Voorst should not have attacked the perceived motives of the people delivering the arguments.
There is meat in this criticism, and it should not be overlooked. Advocates of the JM position need details to explain the birth and early development of Christianity in order to give their theories substance. The details may include:

1) Who invented Christianity? What was his motives for all of the elements that originated with him or her?
2) Who were his immediate followers? How did they change the religion, and what were their motives?
3) What were the first divisions? Who won and who lost?
4) How do all elements of the Pauline epistles and gospel narratives fit into this model of the birth and development?

Generally, advocates of the HJ position already have models with the answers. Jesus invented Christianity, he was a Jewish cult leader, his immediate followers included Peter, James, and John, with Peter taking the most significant role in leadership after Jesus died, the myth emerged that Jesus was resurrected, so the Christian leaders spun him into a miracle-working Messiah and God, the first divisions were between Peter and Paul about the membership of Gentiles and adherence to Jewish laws, Paul won and Peter lost, and all of the elements of the earliest Christian writings seem to neatly fit into that general model. That is the sort of thing that MJ needs.

I hate to bring up another creationist comparison, but this time I promise that the comparison is extremely limited: a valid criticism of intelligent design is that it lacks details, details of how the designer created life. Without details, there is little substance to the theory.

ApostateAbe

Yes, basically. I figure that Mara Bar-Serapion did not name Jesus because he thought of Christianity as a sect of Judaism, Jews do not speak the name of their God, Jesus was thought to be a God, so Mara referred to Jesus as a "wise king" out of respect for Christians. Of course, that is just a hypothesis pulled from the air. I don't know why Mara Bar-Serapion didn't name Jesus. But, if he was talking about a Jewish "wise king" who was killed by the Jews preceding the diaspora (the proposed punishment), then it seems to be something of a no-brainer.

spin

Try to play kosher.

The grammar is clear enough. Paul is not going to talk about anything but Jesus Christ and more specifically him crucified. The only thing that could any problem is the use of the negative in the Greek.

Would you care to present a clear exegesis of this verse?


spin

spin

Another one of these creative probability merchants. I know, ApostateAbe, that you are predisposed to the notion that Mark was written around 70 based on the conjecture about the destruction of the temple, but it is merely a belief, one that you've inherited from people such as Van Voorst who can't get any more tangible than the original conjecture.

False logic and false information. If the few indications about Palestine were accurate that wouldn't prove much given that there were Jews with connections with Palestine around the Mediterranean at the time. But then folks on the forum are happy to tell you that the itinerary of Jesus regarding Tyre and Sidon. Placing the Legion story so far away from the lake makes obvious a lack of understanding of the geography.

I have shown on a number of occasions that there are linguistic traces in Mark that are exceptionally hard to explain if the gospel was written outside a Latin community which had Greek as a second language. There are Latin idioms translated into Greek, Greek terms explained with Latin terms, Latin terms instead of Greek. Even the form "Herodian" is Latin morphology.

We've heard them and they're tired.

You need to do better than parrot Van Voorst.


spin

Toto

But the ministry and teachings are missing. The term "rulers of this age" may refer to demons rather than earthly rulers. The resurrection is not part of the historical Jesus in any case.

The evidence is that ~70 CE is close to the earliest date for Mark; there is no actual evidence of the gospel until the mid-second century. Why do you suppose that 70 is the "consensus" date? Could it have something to do with the overwhelmingly Christian nature of the soft science of Biblical scholarship and its perceived need to date the gospels as early as possible?

It is quite clear that Van Voorst's arguments are wrong on both counts. The gospel references to Palestine are notable for their "difficulties."

You do yourself no credit by repeating these arguments as if they had a shred of validity.

Why assume that a single individual invented Christianity in a sort of Big Bang for the new religion? Why not consider that Christianity could have evolved out of a Jewish sect?

You are assuming the usual historical Jesus narrative, in which Jesus was either a wise sage or an apolcalyptic prophet, but his disciples were too dense to know what he really preached.

How do you know that there was initial unity, followed by divisions?

I think this is a problem for both historicists and mythicists. The Pauline epistles and the gospels present many problems for someone who believes that a charismatic leader jump started the Christian movement around 30 CE but made no impression on the society of the time - yet was able to inspire literature that surfaced several generations later, and a preacher who never knew him was able to take over the movement.

Creationists also have all the answers. Goddidit.

No, a valid criticism of intelligent design is that it has no theory and misrepresents clear facts. It was a strategy devised by a lawyer to crack the scientific consensus in favor of evolution by finding some gaps that evolution could not explain, where a creator could fit in; but scientists have closed those gaps.

The current "consensus" among NT scholars is missing. There is no general agreement that any historical details about Jesus can be recovered, there is no agreed on methodology for recovering them, there is no agreement about who Jesus was.

Chaucer

Not to mention the direct quotes of certain Jesus remarks found in 1 Corinthians.

Chaucer