andrewcriddle

April DeConick holds that from Thomas and the Synoptics one can reconstruct a quite elaborate early oral tradition about Jesus. Her academic work on the supposedly very early "kernel" within the Gospel of Thomas is an example of these claims. (I should make clear that I am not necessarily convinced by her arguments.) Her problems about reconstructing the Historical Jesus do not come from skepticism about early Christian belief. IIUC her problem is that some of what she holds that very early Christians believed seems to her clearly unhistorical, and all is affected by belief in Jesus as resurrected Messiah, so how does one solidly demonstrate which bits of early Christian belief are genuinely historical ?

Andrew Criddle

Apostate1970

Yes, much like that. And I already clearly specified the two chief respects of similarity.

No, not at all. Rather, in BOTH cases transitional fossils HAVE been shown and yet they are simply denied as such.

Evidence that should convince the reasonable IS given. That it does not convince the unreasonable is no evidence that it is not evidence and so does not reflect poorly on their positions.

Believing that all the things said of him are true is not only that cranky but is far crankier. But merely believing that the stories are rooted in a historical person is not cranky at all, in fact it's most reasonable.

I think that far more decisive evidence can be given of the latter fact than of the former, but that does not mean that there is not still good evidence for the former.

What?! Where on earth did you get this from? Not from anything I've said. To the contrary, I've suggested that the chief problem, and the reason that there are today any ahistoricists at all, is that the text histories have been controlled by the credulous ... ie. Christian text controlled by Christians, Islamic text controlled by Muslims, etc. ... and that they were largely successful in editing or stamping out other texts.

Go ahead and compare all you want.

Yes, but most are not created "out of thin air". They're either created syncretistically from existing practices or as a result of a founder figure, usually both. Scientology fits mostly the "founder only" pattern. Serapeanism fits mostly the "pure syncretism" pattern. We have strong evidence to believe that Christianity fits both patterns.

No. I never made such a comparison and you should know it.

I've already dealt with everything you've brought up in previous posts and you're just not bringing up anything new. You just keep harping on about Creme/Paul and one quote/similarity, which similarity I've already clearly explained. That's pretty much what I expect from you though.

Apostate1970

You know what? The ahistoricists just convinced me. I now realize that no human being that did not produce an artifact or well-defined atifact trace (such as the information in a reproducible text) that exists to this day ever existed. Furthermore, things spoken are ineligible for tracing: you actually have to have written it yourself. That means that Mohammed did not exist. Paul did exist since he's simply said to be "the writer of x", but if he had had a copyist he would not have existed. Joseph Smith didn't exist since he didn't actually physically write the Book of Mormon. The people who built the pyramids, whoever they were, all existed, but most of the pharaohs, who were written about and had monuments created to them but did not actually produce any writings or monuments of their own, did not exist. How ironic ... the slaves of the pharaohs all existed but the pharaohs did not. In fact, the only possible way of referring to any ever really existing humans is by referring to them as "the writer of x" or "the creator of y" where x and y are original works we have in hand. And there's no reason to stop at humans! If it did not fossilize then it never existed and there's no reason to think it did! To repeat: There is absolutely no reason to think that anything but those specific individual organisms that actually fossilized ever existed! Wow! What an insight!

Idiots.

dog-on

This sounds exactly like, his hypothesis uses text from Mark in a way which he can make fit his hypothesis.

From history? What history?

(You know, just a tiny piece of actual evidence that any form of Christianity existed in Palestine, during the first century, would help.)

No, didn't read the book, but am somewhat familiar with his position.

I actually get frustrated when I read such works, as they inevitably turn into a protracted session of assuming your own conclusions.

If you think his work does not do this, give me a bit of a morsel, maybe I'll bite.

If I had evidence, it would be convincing, I suppose. It is a shame, however, that conjecture just doesn't make real good evidence, if conjecture should even be considered evidence at all.

Ben C Smith

Your hearing aid must be going out if internal evidence automatically sounds like circular reasoning to you.

Read the book. (Most of the history, IIRC, comes from Josephus.)

You have seen at least some of the evidence many times (in your discussions with Amaleq13 on Galatians, for one); you simply refuse to acknowledge it.

What frustrates me is watching people criticize scholars or their positions without even having read their books.

Ben.

dog-on

I suppose that you are correct.

I will read 'The Gospels in Context (or via: amazon.co.uk)'.

We'll pick this up when I am finished.

Ben C Smith

Fair enough. Thanks.

Just FYI, I did not think there was much of a chance of a pre-Marcan passion narrative before reading Theissen. I am still not convinced there was one; but it is far more a possibility now than it was before I read him.

I guess this is the way of things in biblical studies; the more you read, the less you know.

Ben.

dog-on

Theissen states that his work is "intended to aid in the clarification of the possibilities for a history of the synoptic tradition from it's oral prehistory", etc.

A bit later he states that "the presupposition of an oral tradition will be regarded as valid", etc.


He goes on to list a few reasons, mainly that:

1. Luke presupposes it, in his introduction

2. John's quip about the number of books needed to contain all of JC's adventures.

3. Papias saying that he preferred eyewitnesses to books.

4. Comparative history of religion.

5. "Formulas and recurrent motifs" found in the gospels.


I need a little bit of help, here...

Why is this not a circular argument which basically assumes that which the author wishes to conclude?

Ben C Smith

Because the assumption to be taken as valid for the topic at hand is based on things (Papias, the Lucan preface, the Johannine hyperbole) independent of the topic at hand. The arrows are unidirectional (statements about oral tradition > assumption of oral tradition in general > argument to specific oral traditions in various gospel passages), not circular.

Ben.

dog-on

I have been trying to see it that way for 2 days...

My problem is that I keep seeing it like this:

various gospel passages are assumed to contain oral traditions > statements about oral tradition > assumption of oral tradition in general > argument to specific oral traditions in various gospel passages

...whatever, I'll continue on...