GakuseiDon

"Discrediting everything"? Please. "Die for a lie" is a truism. It doesn't make it true, but it is a nice rule-of-thumb. Saying that it discredits everything he has written in that article is over-the-top. That Christians have used it badly elsewhere doesn't mean his point on midrash is discredited here.

This is what he wrote:

Such distinctions mean that something generated the new belief. One could claim it was simply made up, but if so why die for the idea?"

Do you think that he has made a reasonable point that "something generated the new belief", and that it wasn't likely simply made up? If so, then concentrating on his "die for a lie" comment to associate his argument with bad ones used by others ignores his point. In Aussie football we call that "playing the man instead of playing the ball".

Toto

Sorry, it is not a truism. It is a fallacy. People die for lies all the time, and have all through history. It has been discussed and refuted here on these boards time and time again.

If he had a point on midrash, that might be true.

No I do not think that he has a reasonable point. He can argue that the resurrection was not derived from Jewish scripture, and if he stopped there, he would be on solid ground. But he has no valid evidence that it wasn't simply made up, and he doesn't consider the other possibilities that have been proposed for the resurrection, in particular that it was borrowed from paganism or the mystery religions.

Anytime I hear someone argue that early Christians would not have died for a lie, I know that I am not listening to a reasonable person.

Steven Carr

You mean the Jews who though Elijah or one of the other prophets would return before the general resurrection were not Jews at all?

'One could claim it was simply made up, but if so why die for the idea?"

Gosh, those Heaven's Gaters didn't make it up after all?

Perhaps this guy could give us evidence about how these people died, and why they died?

Even Acts says Paul was never charged with preaching a resurrection.

'Bock is saying that resurrection of Jesus in the past is unlikely to be midrash as there is nothing in the OT for such an idea to be "midrashed" on.'

You mean if somebody had asked Paul how Jesus could be raised in 3 days 'in accordance with the scriptures', he would have shuffled his feat, looked embarrassed, and eventually admitted that there was nothing in the OT for such an idea?

'Rather it is the claim of an empty tomb and appearances that does (see 1 Cor 15).'

Hey, Dr. Bock can find the word 'tomb' in 1 Corinthians 15.

Methinks, Dr. Bock is reading between the lines. Paul sneakily left out any explicit claim of an empty tomb, perhaps because he knew the authorities would kill people who said that there had been an empty tomb.

George S

What is the lie, though. What is the truth.

When the Muslim and the Jew face each other and shoot each other dead for the specific reason of differing religion, one of them has died for a lie. Dying for any "cause" says only what the martyr believes to be true, not what is true.

If one reads the Bible as a book of myth and wisdom literature, but not literal truth, a different level of truth can be found. We learn from Grimm and Aesop and the Koran and the stories of the Buddha and the Bible and Shakespeare and Chicken Soup for the Soul or Harry Potter. In the exact same way.

Magdlyn

Jesus' death and resurrection as an OT midrash: Freke and Gandy suggest that Jesus' death is based on Moses' death, and Jesus' resurrection is Joshua's crossing of the Jordan and entrance into the Promised Land. Of course, this is a gnostic idea. Paul was not averse to seeing the OT as mere metaphor.

However I do think it's obvious he was also influenced by the stories of dying and rising gods of the Hellenistic world. There was even precedent in Jerusalem-- as shown by the women weeping for Tammuz on the Temple grounds (Ezekiel 8:14). Tammuz was adopted by the Greeks and called Adonis (adonai).

GakuseiDon

True, he's only addressing the argument that the resurrection was based on midrash. But he is responding directly to the issue raised by Doherty.

Steven Carr

By producing an argument from silence? An argument that we know everything that any Jew ever thought about the OT, and so we know that Jews never thought any part of the OT prophesied a Messiah rising from the dead.

matthewthomas

Surely the point being made is not whether the Heaven's Gate founders were right or wrong, but that something, or rather, someone, convinced the cult members to commit suicide. Similarly, if the early followers of Jesus were willing to die for their beliefs, then they were persuaded by something or someone. This doesn't have to imply that they died for correct beliefs - their deaths could have been the most wretched and pointless waste.

So, as I understand the argument, if everything in the gospels and/or Paul ideas were based on midrash from the OT, there is no reason to think that anyone knowing that it was midrash would be willing to die. Therefore, something (e.g. empty tomb) or someone (e.g. charasmatic preacher) persuaded them of the new ideas such that they were willing to die for them, and so that something must have happened or that someone must have existed.

This argument seems to me a bit better than the 'disciples wouldn't die for a lie, so it must be true' often spouted. I don't yet buy it, though, for two reasons:
(1) insufficient evidence to persuade me that those in the first generation fo believers did die for their beliefs,
and
(2) since midrash is an attempt to 'discover God's intent by expanding on the Tanekh story', those carrying our midrash would perhaps have seen their creation as more than just a literary exercise but rather as revealing a hidden message from God, and so we cannot assume that the authors (though knowing that the events they describe didn't actually happen) would not be willing to die for this newly revealed, sacred message.

Best wishes,
Matthew

spamandham

Perhaps he's right. So what? If I understand the argument, it is that the gospels are based on midrash, not that every single thing you might find in them is midrash. Is it not clear that early Christianity included non-Jewish ideas as well?

Regardless, I don't buy the claim that there is no basis for resurrection in the Jewish scriptures.

Isaiah 53:11
"After the suffering of his soul, he will see the light of life and be satisfied ;"

GakuseiDon

Bock's claim is no basis for resurrection in the past of the Messiah in the Jewish scriptures: "Had a Jewish idea been midrashed, then Jesus could simply be a raised judge at the end of history such as the idea appears in a text like 1 Enoch."