Rick Sumner

Recently, in this thread, http://www.iidb.org/vbb/showthread.php?t=90919 , Amaleq13 has suggested that the gospels are "wholly unique." Without specific points of "uniqueness" with which to gauge this, there is no way to provide points of comparison to determine their just how unique they are.

I would like to know what, exactly, makes the gospels, "Wholly unique."

Regards,
Rick Sumner

Naruto

http://www.iidb.org/vbb/showthread.php?t=91352

There's nothing special about the gospels.

Amaleq13

Rather start a new thread that continues to shift the burden from your own claim, I was hoping you would provide a coherent argument with supportive evidence putting forth the positive case that the Gospels are not unique. Or, at the very least, an argument for understanding the Gospels as part of a specific "trend" or genre.

Rick Sumner

There is no shifting of the burden of proof. You were the one who made the claim that the gospels are "wholly unique." I stated that I did not think this was the case.

You first stated it here :

You then restated it here :
I then emphatically and repeatedly asked you throughout the rest of the thread how they are unique.

You made the claim, you need to defend it's uniqueness. I've stated throughout that I cannot gauge the accuracy of your claim until you've done so.

Regards,
Rick Sumner

Amaleq13

If you cannot gauge the accuracy of my conclusion, how can you so emphatically deny it?

Rick Sumner

I haven't denied that the gospels are unique, except to observe that such identifications are usually the product of semantic nitpicking. I've asked you *how* they are unique. If you can come up with something that makes them wholly unique, then by all means, I'll acquiesce that this is the case. But I've been waiting for you to come up with this for over a week now.

Are you going to defend your claim or not?

Regards,
Rick Sumner

Amaleq13

Regarding my conclusion, the quotes you provide above clearly establish its basis:

I know of no similar texts.

You also provided an example of why it is so frustrating to try to engage in discussion with you. You offered Philo as an example of an author producing a similar story but you have yet to support this assertion.

"What story written by Philo do you consider comparable to the Gospels? To my knowledge they are entirely unique."

The former is clearly a request for you to support your claim while the latter is an equally clear admission that my conclusion is based on a lack of awareness of anything similar.

Rick Sumner

The point of similarity I was drawing with Philo is that he made things up wholesale that he nonetheless expected to be taken literally. You observed that Philo was not writing a narrative, and thus wasn't quite analogous. You went on to call the gospels "unique."

I left off with Philo, because at least on that point, you are correct. It isn't analogous. A concession of sorts. Yet I'm still waiting for a reason to consider them unique. You would ask me to defend a position when you've convinced me otherwise? That's silly.

You state that you know of nothing similar. You know of nothing similar in what way? You look at other texts, and say "These aren't like the gospels because of X." What is X? What characteristics do the gospels have that are replicated nowhere else?

You have noted that they are narratives, yet so is Herodotus. You have noted that it is about a figure central to their religion, yet so are the Qumran texts. You have noted that they are sectarian, yet again, so are the Qumran texts.

What makes the gospels unique? You continue to stand behind this claim with nothing more than a rephrasing of it. "They are unique because I know of nothing similar." This is akin to me saying "My phone is ringing because it is making a ringing sound." It's simply a restatement of your conclusion, placed as a premise.

So again, what is X?

Stick the topic, please. How you feel about me, or vice versa, is utterly irrelevant to the question of what makes the gospels unique.

Regards,
Rick Sumner

jbernier

Your question answers itself: "Are the gospels wholly unique?" Let us take the Gospel of Matthew. Is it unique? Of course not - it is very similar to the GofMark and the GofLuke and less similar to the GofJohn. There very non-uniqueness one to another is what generates the category "gospel" in the first place.

Now, if we turn outside that category we must first define terms. Does "gospels" mean "canonical gospels"? If so then, again, the answer is no; there is a large body of other literature, such as GofThomas, which have striking thematic similarities to certain of the "gospels" category as so defined. If it does not mean "canonical gospels" then we have to delimit the category. Of course, any attempt to do so will probably stack the deck so as give the answer one wants - one can easily define the category "gospels" in a way conducive to getting one's desired answers. In short the question, as posed, is ambiguous and any effort to attempt to remove that ambiguity is likely to result in special pleading. It is a questionne malposse, a question poorly framed. One can define the term as broadly or as narrowly as one wants to include whatever material one wishes to include or exclude to make one's answer what one wants.

Also, what it is about the gospels are we considering? Their form? Their structure? Their themes? Their specific teachings? Etc.? This greatly affects the question and thus the answer.

Amaleq13

Since I trust you do not want me to assume that every question to which you fail to reply should be understood to indicate a similar concession, rather than simply ignoring it, please be more explicit in the future.

I'm going to try to provide what you have requested but it isn't just a question of "X" but one of multiple X's. I don't have a handy checklist but have reached this conclusion after reading the Gospels numerous times, reading various examinations of the Gospels, and reading a variety of other ancient texts contemporary with and preceding the Gospels.

In all that reading, I've never come across any texts that struck me as similar nor have I read the opinion of any scholar who has offered texts he/she considered to be similar.