aa5874

So, it was the snake story that made you realize that Alexander the Great was a figure of history. And, if there are no snake stories, Alexander the Great did not exist.

My position is that the snake story is IRRELEVANT with respect to the history of Alexander the Great. You will have to obliterate Greece and other parts of the world to deny that Alexander the Great is a figure of history.

The history of Jesus of the NT, on the other hand, is just filled with all snake stories.

The so-called prophecies, conception, birth, baptism, temptation, miracles, transfiguration, crucifixion, death, resurrection and ascension are all snake stories.

Remove the snake stories and the history of Jesus of the NT is obliterated.

Do you know what you say?

Please, tell me what in gMk is true with respect to the history of Jesus.

The death or disappearance of Jesus, if he lived, would have been a definite part of the history of Jesus, however, the author of Mark produced another "snake story", he wrote that Jesus was RISEN.

How can the history of Jesus of the NT be recovered if all we have are "snake stories"?

spamandham

The conclusion doesn't follow. We know Pilate was real not because he's part of the passion story, but because he's mentioned by Josephus and Philo of Alexandria.

It isn't necessary to speculate on that in order to notice that writers of fiction (or in this case 'hero biographies') frequently employ real places, real events, and real people in their stories. The mere fact that Pilate is mentioned, is not sufficient to make the grossly implausible passion story historical. ....and it isn't a valid form of analysis to simply remove the implausible portions and presume the rest actually happened.

However, if I were to speculate why an author would pull Pilate into an ahistorical passion account, I would guess that it's because "he had a nasty reputation as a cruel dude"* at the time gMark was penned.

* apologies to the Eagles.

bacht

How to recover the Jesus of the history - okay "fools rush in..."

What is the evidence? afaik basically just the NT documents, plus external confirmation of the existence of Christian believers by at least the early 2nd C

How do we interpret the evidence? what kind of documents do we have, when were they written, why were they written... for my money the early epistles are the most reliable as far as being read at face value: messianic sectarians awaiting the promised Son of God, according to their interpretation of Jewish scripture

Gospels: If Mark was first, do we know what he was writing and why?

How do we evaluate the differences (if any) between pre- and post-Revolt attitudes? How do we evaluate the interplay between Jewish and gentile beliefs and their roles in early Christianity?

cheers

ynquirer

It does follow. Josephus and Philo, plus some archaeological remains, serve as confirmation that Pilate of gMk represents a historical character, since coincidence of names and not of characters is simply implausible.

True, but just let me add a minor remark. Ancient biographies of Alexander as much as Plutarch’s Parallel Lives, for instance, qualify as ‘hero biographies’. In principle, labelling a text a ‘hero biography’ does not say anything against the credibility of either the writer or the story.

It is not more valid to ditch the plausible because of the implausible.

Not at the time gMk was written but a minimum of forty years before, when Philo wrote his Embassy to Gaius. Much closer to Mark in time is Josephus, who is a very hard critic of some Roman procurators, but not precisely Pilate.

spamandham

That's the point. If the passion story was our only knowledge of Pilate, we would doubt Pilate's historicity (well, I would anyway).

I agree that assessment of the genre as 'hero biography' doesn't tell us the information is automatically unreliable, but it does tell us we need to analyze it as a hero biography rather than as a historical record - which can range from history slightly embellished here and there, to outright myth. It's up to us to decide if the work is closer to one end or the other.

If we strip away the implausible from Alexander, we still have a powerful ruler as the source for the legendary components...and that makes a lot of sense. If we strip away the fantastic from Jesus, we are left with a wandering peasant sage unjustly executed by Rome - a dime a dozen, and nothing to explain how he became a legend.

There's nothing left that's interesting enough about Jesus to explain how he became a legend, once you strip away the magical aspects.

I disagree completely. To the extent a wildly implausible myth contains real history, we simply can not extract it.

If we applied the same type of analysis to 'The Night Before Christmas' that many apply to the Gospels, we might conclude that the historical St. Nick was named 'Nicholas', that he lived in England in the 17th or 18th century, that he rode around in a sleigh pulled by reindeer every Christmas passing out gifts. We would conclude he wore red garb, was short, heavy set and jolly, and that he was probably a chimney sweep as his day job. We would probably also say the author was an eye witness. After all, none of that is implausible.

....but other than the name, we got absolutely everything wrong.

I said what I meant. The speculation is that Pilate had a nasty reputation at the time gMark was penned. It doesn't matter that he was already deposed at that time.

aa5874

Your statement appears to coincide with the writings of Josephus in Antiquities of the Jews 18.3.1 and 18.3.2

And in AJ 18.3.2, Pilate had many Jewsish protestors killed or wounded when ten thousands of them tried to stop the water project.

Pilate appeared to have a nasty reputation and the author of gMark may have used Josephus AJ 18.3 to fabricate the history of his Jesus.

mountainman

There is no external confirmation outside of the Eusebian ecclesiastical history of prenicene christians to indicate the existence of Christian believers in either the second or the third centuries. Go and have a look and get back to me with what is being held up in public view as such a citation.



With carbon dating citations. What evidence before the 4th century? Over. How do we interpret this great external silence to the NT literature?

Best wishes,


Pete

ynquirer

Happily, that's not the case.

The crucial fact is that Jesus was executed by the Romans, not the Jews. Many people were put to death by the Jews according to the Mosaic law as a matter of routine (as the Talmud suggests that one Yeshu ha-Nosri was), including James according to Josephus, of all of whom there remains scarcely any historical memory. However, Jesus was the first Jew to be executed by the Romans on account of political charges – self styling ‘King of the Jews’. That establishes a clear-cut connection of this ‘uninteresting man’ with the destruction of the Temple three to four decades afterward, a connection highlighted in the Little Apocalypse, gMk.

After the destruction of the Temple, those Jews hesitating between rebellion and surrender might have found a ‘third-way’ in following the teachings of such a man.

Is that the kind of worldly explanation for a ‘legend’ you are looking for?

The ‘17th or 18th century’, that is, plus/minus 100 years, 300 years ago, does not compare to ‘the fourth decade of the first century’, or plus/minus five years, 2,000 years ago. Furthermore, your story doesn't mention any historical person.

You can compare whatever you want, but this comparison will not do.

No, you didn’t get it right. I didn’t reject your explanation about Pilate in gMk because he lived decades before. I did because that is the assessment of Pilate you can find in Philo, who wrote shortly before Jesus was executed, and not in Josephus, much closer to Mark – just compare with Josephus’ assessments of other, later Roman governors.

In any event, once we begin to deal with the origins of the ‘Jesus’ legend’, this point loses its teeth.

mountainman

The crucial fact is that have no C14 for Jesus and/or the new testament, and absolutely no independent corroboration of evidence for at least the first century is agreed by most ancient historians. The crucial fact is that tens of thousands were executed by the Romans. Jesus has not been found in the first century. Conjecture places the NT in the second. C14 tells us otherwise.

Best wishes,


Pete

aa5874

It is NOT a fact that Jesus of the NT was the first Jew to be executed by the Romans on account of political charges.

And in fact, it is very likely or almost certain your statement is completely erroneous.

In the NT, Jesus was executed INNOCENTLY, Pilate found no fault in Jesus, and the Romans did not bring any political charge against him. In the NT, it would appear that Pilate did not even know who Jesus was, and the Romans, it would appear, did not have any political interest in Jesus.

Based on the NT, the chief priests and the Jews present at the trial wanted Jesus to be executed for blasphemy.
There is no evidence to show that the Jews would have worshipped a mere mortal as the Son of the God of the Jews or a person who was claimed to be the offspring of the Holy Ghost as presented in the NT, when the very same Jews had Jesus executed for claiming or implying that he was the Son of God.

And about 60 years after the destruction of the Temple, around 135 CE, there is clear evidence that the Jews were still looking for a miltary or political Messiah and believed that Simon bar Kochba was the Messiah.


The history of Jesus of the NT is unknown.