Freethought & Rationalism Archive

Vinnie · 11-14-2003, 11:58 AM

Quote:

Originally posted by Layman
What are your references for James having a "fabulous reputation and popularity with fellow Jews"?

I think this is argued at least partly or primarly based off of Josephus' reference to James isn't it? Surprising for a mythicist to appeal to this when they have to dismiss the shorter reference as inauthentic!

I'm curiousm yself. Whats the evidence for this claim outside of Josephus?

Vinnie

Amaleq13 · 11-14-2003, 12:01 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by Layman
Paul does not indicate that this was the beginning of the movement. Far from it. He specifically refers to several events prior to the appearance to Cephas. Specifically, that Christ died. That he was buried. And that he was raised from the dead.

Cephas is described as the first to witness the Resurrected Savior. Within the mythical context, the movement began with just such a revelation (perhaps while studying Scripture or fasting or praying or all of the above).

Layman · 11-14-2003, 12:06 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by Amaleq13
The entirely spiritual Resurrected Savior was not crucified by Rome for insurrection but by the demonic powers that ruled the lowest heavenly sphere.

But Paul in 1 Cor. 2:6-8 is refering to earthly, not heavenly, rulers who put Jesus to death.

http://www.iidb.org/vbb/showthread.p...ghlight=rulers

Layman · 11-14-2003, 12:09 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by Amaleq13
Cephas is described as the first to witness the Resurrected Savior. Within the mythical context, the movement began with just such a revelation (perhaps while studying Scripture or fasting or praying or all of the above).

Cephas is the first to witness a resurrection appearance, but Paul also says that Jesus died, was buried, and was resurrected before that event. There is no mythical context. Paul is not distinguishing the former as happening in some different location as the latter.

And why would Paul use a Greek term most often used to refer to a real seeing of something. Would not he have used the term "apokalupto", which actually means "revealed", often in the context of heavenly revelation.

"For I consider that the suffering of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory that is to be revealed to us?" Rom. 8:18.

"But if a revelation is made to another who is seated, the first one must keep silent." 1 Cor. 14:30.

"Let us therefore, as many as are perfect, have this attitude; and if in anything you have a different attidue, God will reveal that also to you." Phi. 3:15.

Layman · 11-14-2003, 12:10 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by Vinnie
I think this is argued at least partly or primarly based off of Josephus' reference to James isn't it? Surprising for a mythicist to appeal to this when they have to dismiss the shorter reference as inauthentic!

I'm curiousm yself. Whats the evidence for this claim outside of Josephus?

Vinnie

Yes, this is exactly my point. If you are relying on Josephus, on what grounds to you claim Josephus is reporting a real brother to a mythical saviour? And if you are not refering to Josephus, what are you referring to?

Vinnie · 11-14-2003, 12:14 PM

Quote:

If I thought Mark was written as early as Q or Paul's letters, I would tend to accept Jesus as an historical figure.

This is what I was getting at in the other thread. Mark uses a ton of existing material.

This is why I was under the impressions that mythicists had to see Mark as inventing largely whole cloth! Lots of the material in Mark can be shown to pre-date him and the rest of it, well some we have to remain agnostic on.

This is where I completely don't understand the mythicist claim. That us why I wrote this article a while back:

Some minor points of my views have changed since then but the overall thruist is the same:

http://www.acfaith.com/marcaninvention.html

Jesus material in Mark and Paul:

1. Material in the Pauline corpus found in GMark:

Jesus had a brother named James (see Josephus as well).
Jesus had followers (was a movement starter)..
Jesus had a follower named Peter.
Jesus was crucified.
Jesus was buried.
Jesus was handed over.
Jesus had a final meal with his disciples.
Jesus called Twelve Disciples.
Jesus prohibited divorce.
Jesus taught on the imminent coming of the Kingdom.

Jesus Material in Mark and Q though Mark must be viewed independent of Q!

Pericope or Saying ----------------- Q / GLuke--------GMatthew---------GMark-----------Page Number
Appearance of John ---------------- 3:2b-4---------3:1-3, 5-------- 1:3-5-----------------135
Eschatological Preaching-------------3:16-17------- 3:11-12-------- 1:7-8-----------------135
Instructions for the Road-------------10:4-7---------10:9-11-------- 6:8-13--------------139-140
Beelzebul Accusation-----------------11:14-20------12:22-28--------3:23-26------------141-142
He who is not with me--------------11:23----------12:30-----------9:40-----------------141
Pharisees Take the First Seats-----11:43-----------23:6-----------12:39---------------142
Fearless confession-----------------12:8-9----------10:32-33-------8:38-----------------145
The Spirits Assistance----------------12:11-12-------10:19---------13:9-11---------------145
Whoever carries his cross -----------14:27------- --10:38---------8:34--------------------148
Whoever seeks his life----------------17:33----------10:39----------8:35-----------------148
About Salt--------------------------14:34-35---------5:13------------9:50----------------148
On Divorce---------------------------16:18-----------5:32---------10:11-12--------------148
About Sandal-------------------------17:1-2-----------18:6-7----------9:42---------------148
The Temptation of Jesus---------------4:1-13-----------4:1-11---------1:12-13------------135-136

The form of mark's gospels clearly shows that he is stringing existing material together and stringing it together.

Many recognize a source behind the parables in Mark 4.

Mark 12:1 uses "parables" but only one parable follows. This leads scholars to think that Mark was using a source.

There is a complex tradition behind the feedings of the multitude in Mark. As John Meier has written: "When compared to most Gospel miracle stories, the feeding of the multitude is supported by an unusually strong attestation of multiple sources. It is not only attested independently in both Mark and John, it is also attested by two variant forms of the tradition lying behind Mark's Gospel. This suggests a long and complicated tradition history reaching back to the early days of the first Christian generation. Prior to Mark's Gospel there seems to have been two cycles of traditions about Jesus' ministry in Galilee, each one beginning with one version of the feeding miracle (Mk 6:32-44 and Mk 8:1-10). Before these cycles were created, the two versions of the feeding would have circulated as independent units, the first version attracting to itself the story of Jesus' walking on the water (a development also witnessed in John 6), while the second version did not receive such an elaboration. Behind all three versions of the miracle story would have stood some primitive form." (A Marginal Jew, vol. 2, p. 965)

Mark and John shared a miracle list (see Crossan, The HJ, p. 429). For those who think John knew Mark, it would have to be shown how the Johannine miracles are redacted from Mark's form in order to dispute this source. Simply showing that John knew Mark will not cut it.

Johannine and Marcan independence. This is disputed by some scholars but if Mark and John developed independently then a host of Marcan material independently attested by John would open up. It could be no longer asserted that Mark invented or created such material.

Also and finally, the controversy traditions whic are muy importante!

The controversy traditions in Mark seem to suggest that Mark used a source. As E.P. Sanders wrote:

Quote:

"For the sake of emphasis and clarity, I wish to comment once more on the nature of the material that the gospels incorporated and also on how the authors utilized it. When Mark wrote his Gospel he had before him a lot of individual pericopes, and he put them together in a narrative without, however destroying the basic pericope form. We saw above his brief links: 'immediately', again', and similar vague indications (pp. 73f.). The quick stringing together of the pericopes allowed Mark to open his gospel in a dramatically forceful way, by racing through brief accounts of healings and conflicts, up to the conclusion that some people plotted Jesus' death. Matthew and Luke did not always keep Mark's order sequence, and they moved some of the stories to other places in their gospels. Thus, for example, Matthew did not put the story of the healing of the paralytic where it would go if he had been following Mark's order, in his ch. 4, but rather with other miracle stories in ch. 9. The pericope could be moved to suit the interests of each author. This reminds us once again that the gospels are not biographies in the modern sense of the word.

Mark may not have been the first to put pericopes together to make a story. Many scholars think that the series of conflict scenes in 2.1-3.6 came to him ready-made. It is noteworthy that the conclusion (the Pharisees and the Herodians plotted Jesus' death) comes too early for the structure of the gospel as a whole. The Pharisees and Herodians are reintroduced nine chapters later (Mark 12:13), where they are said to be trying to entrap Jesus. Historically it is not likely that the fairly minor conflicts in Mark 2.1-53.5 actually led to a plot to put Jesus to death (3:6), and editorially it is not likely that Mark himself created the plot where it now stands in 3:6, only to reintroduce a weaker version of opposition from these two parties in 12.13. The most likely explanation of 3.6 is that the conflict stories of 2.1-3.5 had already been put together and that they immediately preceded a story of Jesus' arrest, trial and execution. That is, a previous collection--a proto gospel-- may have consisted of conflict stories, a plot against Jesus, and the successful execution of the plot.

For the moment it is important to see that, in reading the first chapters of mark, we are not reading a first-hand diary of 'life with Jesus in Galilee', but an edited collection of individual events that may originally have had another context." (Historical Figure of Jesus p 130-131)

Thats a howitzer right there!

Vinnie

Amaleq13 · 11-14-2003, 12:14 PM

I asked:
Do you know of any historical figure at any point in history where an author writing about him felt compelled to declare he had been "born of a woman"?

Layman replied:

Quote:

The phrase "born of a woman" is "a typical Jewish circumlocution for a human person."

Thanks for your efforts but none of your examples allows you to answer my question in the affirmative.

Do you know of any historical figure at any point in history where an author writing about him felt compelled to declare he was a human?

Granted, I consider Doherty's appeal to the idea of multiple, heavenly spheres to be the most difficult to accept/grasp but I also have to contend with Paul's often convoluted and sometimes even seemingly self-contradictory expressions of his belief.

If I assume Jesus to have been historical, why Paul would feel it necessary to assert Jesus was human?

Layman · 11-14-2003, 12:23 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by Amaleq13
That "merger" is accomplished by Mark.

That is a conclusion, not an explanation. Why could not it have originated in the same person or community, as Mark actually claims was the case?

Paul himself shows some knowledge of Q sayings and sentiments. This idea that Mark was the first one to fuse them together seems contrived.

Quote:

If I thought Mark was written as early as Q or Paul's letters, I would tend to accept Jesus as an historical figure.

Well, I'm not up for an arguement on dating Mark rightnow. But since Paul seems to know some Q stuff as well and has no problem articulating them AND the so-called Jerusalem Tradition.

For example:

1 Cor. 13:2-3: "If I have the gift of prophecy, and know all mysteries and all knowledge; and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing. And if I give all my possessions to feed the poor, and if I surrender my body to be burned, but do not have love, it profits me nothing."

Compare with,

Mat 17:20: "And He said to them, "Because of the littleness of your faith; for truly I say to you, if you have faith the size of a mustard seed, you will say to this mountain, 'Move from here to there,' and it will move; and nothing will be impossible to you."

Mat 13:11: "Jesus answered them, 'To you it has been granted to know the mysteries of the kingdom of heaven, but to them it has not been granted.'"

Luk 8:10: "And He said, 'To you it has been granted to know the mysteries of the kingdom of God, but to the rest it is in parables, so that SEEING THEY MAY NOT SEE, AND HEARING THEY MAY NOT UNDERSTAND.'"

Mat 19:21 Jesus said to him, "If you wish to be complete, go and sell your possessions and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; and come, follow Me."

Quote:

That Paul is echoing the saying of Jesus is suggested by the verbal similarities but also by thematic similarities. In 1 Corinthians 13 Paul is responding to the Corinthians' exaltation of spiritual gifts. In Chapter 12 he has affirmed the validity of tongues as a gift and of the even more valuable gift of prophecy, but he now puts the spiritual gifts into the higher perspective of love, asserting that tongues are useless without love (13:1), that prophecy and knowledge are useless without love (v. 2), and then that 'faith' is similarly useless without love. In this context, the 'faith' referred to is evidently faith to work miracles, which is referred to in 12:9. The mountain-moving faith in the Gospels is similar. Paul's description of faith as able to move mountains could simply have been his own coinage provoked by nothing in particular, but it makes particularly good sense if the Jesus-tradition was familiar to him and the Corinthian church.

David Wenham, Paul: Follower of Jesus or Founder of Christianity, at 82.

Quote:

My "outside" was in relation to Christian texts.

Why limit it? Are you assuiming that all Q prophets became Christians by accepting the merger with the Jerusalem tradition?

Quote:

Except for the very end, I would say that is pretty accurate. I don't think the actual community merged with anybody and I don't think Doherty suggests that either. The idea of the Q community members was merged with the Risen Savior. I'm not sure anyone has any idea what happened to the actual members.

So why would we expect the only evidence of the Q community to be in the Christian community?

Quote:

I'll get back to you later tonight or over the weekend with the specific references.

Take all the time you want. Seriously.

Layman · 11-14-2003, 12:28 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by Amaleq13
[B]I asked:
Do you know of any historical figure at any point in history where an author writing about him felt compelled to declare he had been "born of a woman"?

Layman replied:

Thanks for your efforts but none of your examples allows you to answer my question in the affirmative.

You have got to be kidding. Every reference to "born of a human" is used to refer to other human beings. So Paul's use of the term as to Jesus is rather obviously intended to say Jesus was a human being like the rest of us.

Quote:

Do you know of any historical figure at any point in history where an author writing about him felt compelled to declare he was a human?

Well, John the Baptist quite clearly was a human. Right? The gospel authors use the term twice in relation to him.

Quote:

Granted, I consider Doherty's appeal to the idea of multiple, heavenly spheres to be the most difficult to accept/grasp but I also have to contend with Paul's often convoluted and sometimes even seemingly self-contradictory expressions of his belief.

When Paul uses an idiom that indisputably means "human being"--indeed, which stresses that very feature--to refer to Jesus he is quite clearly saying Jesus was a human being.

Writing this off to being 'self-contradictory' is simply ducking the issue. The statement is quite clear. Jeus was born of a woman=Jesus was human. Paul reinforces this by declaring that Jesus was born under the law=Jesus was born a Jew.

Quote:

If I assume Jesus to have been historical, why Paul would feel it necessary to assert Jesus was human?

Probably because Paul also equated Jesus with a pre-existent divine figure, such as God's Wisdom.

Vinnie · 11-14-2003, 12:29 PM

Quote:

Paul himself shows some knowledge of Q sayings and sentiments. This idea that Mark was the first one to fuse them together seems contrived.

Yes Paul does. Several times and anyone who has read koester's ancient Christian Gospels should know this.

See epsecially the inaugural sermon in Q.

Some of these sayings are well known as Jesus material and because of that Doherty engages in special pleading when he calls them "non Jesus material". Skimming his teatment on Thomas--which we both accept as early and independent--at least a layer of it----he argued that maybe the references to Jesus were added to the Gospel later. LOL!

Talk about reading mythicism into the data--or reading Jesus out of it--however you want to call it!!! Maybe I read him too fast on this ara but that is the impression I got through a skim. I was literally stunned. Actually I was sensing blood.....

see the last paragraph on p. 153 and the first on 154 for this claim in Doherty's work!

Vinnie

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