Amaleq13

But, quite unlike Lord of the Flies, there is no categorization on the cover or inside identifying it as fiction. Absent that categorization, there really isn't anything in the story, itself, that identifies it as fiction any more than there is in the story attributed to Mark so your "initial clue" is worthless. The author depicts Jesus as teaching with allegories and clearly values the fact that they are not necessarily transparent to all but require special instruction to be understood. It seems foolish to ignore the obvious possibility that the author might have indulged in his own allegorical teachings in writing his story and that they, too, would have required special instruction to be understood properly.

I was thinking more of the image of the Jews as rejecting/betraying Jesus/Christianity.

jjramsey

You are right to say, "When the great bulk of a work is known to be false, it's reasonable to distrust the rest." Distrusting the work, however, is not the same as discarding it. For one thing, people are more likely to lie or be credulous about some things than others. Also, even when people lie or even just stretch the truth, they don't always do it well. All things being equal, statements against one's interest or biases are less likely to be false. (I say "all things being equal" to avoid rehashing a false comparision.) Certainly, if the bulk of the work is known to be false, that is a reason to be suspicious of the rest. However, throwing out the rest without any sort of examination is bad methodology.

This is a strawman. You are presuming that the initial story that would be preached after the crucifixion ended in Jesus' death.

Good grief! An ordinary preacher used his charisma destructively to get a bunch of people to drink cyanide-laced Kool-Aid. Another ordinary preacher used his charisma constructively to lead marches for civil rights. Is it so much of a stretch to think another ordinary preacher could impel people to do other radical things? You underestimate the power of charisma.

jjramsey

It's a non sequitur, not an obvious possibility. There is no reason to presume that because an author is portraying the main personage of his text as using allegories, he is himself is being allegorical.

But Judas doesn't fit with that. The Jews were portrayed as stiff-necked and hard-hearted. Judas was portrayed as a sneaky thief. This does not make him a good allegory for the Jews.

Amaleq13

Whether you are willing to recognize it or not, it clearly is an obvious possibility. And, whether you are willing to acknowledge it or not, you have no good reason to reject it.

No reason to suspect that the author might engage in a practice he clearly values? How absurd. Clenching your eyes closed does not constitute an argument.

Judas is the epitomy of Jewish rejection of Christianity. You have concocted "sneaky thief" from your own imagination.

The bottom line is you have no rational basis for rejecting the notion that the author of Mark used allegory to tell his story.

jjramsey

Say I read what looks like a biography of some guy named Fred Jones. The alleged biography is such that the author, well, he should be working for the Weekly World News. Said author portray Fred Jones as telling allegories. By your logic, I should conclude that the author is himself being allegorical.

Actually, I was working from memory and thinking of John 12:6, and I'd call sneaky a guy who embezzled from the common purse. I thought the "thief" idea was more commonplace, but I didn't concoct it. Funny though, when looking through verses on Judas, there just isn't much there. All he really does in Mark is betray Jesus. He doesn't even get any good lines. There's no stylizing of his character, because there isn't much character to work with.

jjramsey

To be fair, I should say that by Amaleq13's logic, I should conclude that the author being allegorical is a serious possibility. But why should I even grant that? Amaleq13 says, "No reason to suspect that the author might engage in a practice he clearly values? How absurd." There is nothing absurd about that, though. To be more precise, There is nothing absurd about the author not engaging in a practice he clearly values if it doesn't fit his goals at the time.

And I would say that your second sentence, "I tend to agree that, absent an interview with the author, it cannot be done," is the reason for rejecting allegorical intent as a serious possibility. In Mark, we have a tale that goes rather abruptly, even crudely, from one deed of Jesus to the next. There isn't much in the way of stylization or exaggeration, largely because Mark is so abrupt, which means that there is a lack of opportunity for cues to indicate that something is symbolic. Plus, we have evidence that Mark was taken literally. If the evidence for allegory is so poor that the only way to discover allegorical intent would be to get in a TARDIS to talk to the author, then that indicates that it is improbable that it is an allegory.

Doug Shaver

And we know all about that preacher, why? Because as soon as those people drank that Kool-Aid, the world wanted to know something about the man who inspired them to do it.

They were marching during his lifetime, not 20 or 30 years later.

If Jesus had so much charisma that his followers (a bunch of very monotheistic Jews, according to the story) deified him, why didn't anybody outside of Galilee hear about him during his lifetime?

Which brings up another point. We know that Jim Jones told his followers to drink the Kool-Aid. We know that Martin Luther King Jr. encouraged marches for civil rights. It is not obvious from the alleged record that Jesus ever told his followers that they should worship him as the son of God.

jjramsey

Who says that he was deified during his lifetime? If anything, what is in the Synoptics indicates otherwise. I would suggest that to counter the shame of the crucifixion, the disciples laid the vindication on thick, at least by proclaming the resurrection, and Paul probably laid it on thicker. Actually, judging from both the Jewish tradition that Moses was preexistent and Paul's indications in 1 Corinthians 15:28 that Jesus was still second-in-command, it is probably not strictly correct that Jesus was initially deified, but rather that, like Moses, he was given "excessive adoration," and it was the influence of the Gentiles, who had far fewer compunctions about deifying humans, that finished the job of deification--and even then, the monotheism from Jewish tradition was maintained by not making Jesus a separate autonomous god, but part and parcel of God himself.

Chris Weimer

And in the modern age of technology, such information was readily available. Perhaps we should just consult the database of Jewish records from the first century and check his personal identification number?

And many still honor the man even today. Many still honor the man more than a mere preacher even today. Living in Memphis, you get a lot of the Doc down here.

Who said his earliest followers deified him? Do we have any information which suggests that? And apologies if someone here may have brought this up, but I would disagree.

Again can I ask who is claiming this? Either way, you're absolutely right. It's actually against available evidence that Jesus told his followers to worship him at all.

Edited: Looks like jjramsey and I hit the same subject overlapping. Where did you get this notion that the earliest Christians deified Christ, even immediately after his death? I asked Ted Hoffman the same question, but he evaded and called me stupid. C'est la vie (que Jacques sait tres bien).

Amaleq13

Why do you insist on changing my claim from admitting the quite reasonable possibility that the author would employ the same teaching practices as the central figure of his faith into an assertion that he did?

ETA: I see in your subsequent post that you have somewhat retreated from your appeal to this strawman perversion of my actual position but you still appear to prefer to keep your eyes closed to the obvious possibility by way of continuing your mind-reading act so as to engage in dismissive speculation:
What evidence suggests to you that utilizing an allegory "doesn't fit his goals at the time"? For that matter, what evidence informs you of the author's "goals"?

By that flawed reasoning, we would reject allegorical intent for all authors who are dead and/or refuse to comment on their works.

We do not know from Golding that intended his story to be read allegorically, therefore, we should reject the possibility? Absurd.

We have evidence that Mark was eventually taken literally but we have nothing to suggest this was true of the author or his original readership.

And his name is "Judas". I'm certainly not the first to note that the character can be taken as symbolic of the Jewish people as a group.