jakejonesiv

Is it easier to believe in talking rabbits or the various miracles alleged in the gospels? Both seem to exist in fictional worlds where the impossible are deemed to happen routinely.

BTW, how is Richard Adams conveying the "motivations and even the names attributed to the rabbits" different from au_GMark conveying the sayings and actions and motivations and names attributed to the disciples?

Jake

Damian

The thing is, religion has a near monopoly on marketing fiction as history (see The Book of Mormon, Quran, Scientology, etc...even, to a certain extent, the Greek epics). For at least this reason, the analogy is relevant, because we know absolutely that fiction with a religious motive passed off as history is quite popular.

Ben C Smith

Presumably because a human being (say, the author of Mark) can hypothetically grasp the sayings, actions, and motivations of other humans (say, the disciples), while grasping the sayings, actions, and motivations of rabbits would be a neat trick.

Ben.

Amaleq13

I disagree. The author could still believe that the body had either literally come back to life or been completely transformed/replaced while understanding the empty tomb to be nothing but an allegory for that event.

Except it still leaves the author unable to offer anything substantive to defend his belief in the resurrection and that can hardly be considered as "scoring points" against a critic. That is my point. Acknowledging that the empty tomb is an allegory is tantamount to acknowledging that there was no evidence that Jesus had risen except the claims of alleged witnesses.

Do you intend to return to our original discussion or do you not have a way to differentiate between an author who believes the story he is telling is literally true and an author who wants at least some of his audience to hold that belief?

Ben C Smith

All relevant points, I believe, are already on the table. Let the reader decide. Thanks for the exchange.

Ben.

jjramsey

I wouldn't be too sure of this. Certainly, mixing fiction and history is not something religion has a monopoly on. There's an entry in the blog Religions of the Ancient Mediterranean about the stereotypical lurid tales made up about the feasts of foreigners and out-groups. Some of these tales are in Greek prose fiction, while one made its way into Livy's history of Rome. A draft copy of "Culturally Transgressive Banquets in Greco-Roman Associations: Imagination and Reality," an article for an SBL seminar on Greco-Roman meals, is here:

http://www.philipharland.com/BanditBanquetsSBL.pdf

I don't see anyone here assuming the miracles are anything but either embellishments or exaggerations of mundane events.

Damian

Well, i did say near monopoly. And, this sort of furthers the point that representing fiction as historical fact is not unheard of. The counterpoint was that the very fact that the writers wanted certain aspects to appear historical lent a certain validation to those aspects which could be "falsified," or proven wrong, or were otherwise inaccurate. In other words, the argument seems to be "why would a writer claim something fictional was in fact historical when it would be easy to prove otherwise?" Indeed, this happens all the time, even in our generation.

jakejonesiv

Both are allegories.

Ben C Smith

In the process of taking away the miraculous elements from both Watership Down and the gospel of Mark, the name motivations and sayings of the disciples can stay; the name motivations and sayings of rabbits have to go.

Ben.

jakejonesiv

[getting on soap box]

It is a modern illusion that the gospels can be demythologized to recover a historical core.

The gospels are not historical documents. For example, we are asked to believe that the baptism of Jesus by John is historical. But it is replete with the heavens opening with the voice of the Almighty and the wafting about of the holy spirit in dove form, immediately followed by the fantastic temptation narrative. To assert that any certain historical knowledge can be gleaned from such a preposterous mix is illogical.

The tales are preposterous when viewed as history, but coherent when viewed as religous imagination.

The demytholigizing process proceeds by deleting any details that are embarrasing to modern sensibilities. But this is done without any regard to the integrity of the mythstory being related. This is the real "criterion of embarrasment." If it is embarrasing to the modern HJ scholar in search of the 'real' Jesus, it has to go!

This is why the historical reconstructions of Jesus are so odd. We are asked to believe that Jesus was for example an obscure Zealot leader, or a _failed_ prophet, but the gospels do not describe the alleged Jesus as such a person. The never was a conception of Jesus that was a failure, but a god that ascended as surely as he descended.

If one "looks behind the scenes" for the origin of the gospel Jesus you will find an otherworldy figure that strides scenes as if playing a cameo role. He descends from heaven (John 3:13). He moves unseen and cannot be grasped (Luke 4:30).

At the fourth watch of the night, this entity comes walking on the sea as if a ghost, intent on his own mission heedless of the disciples until they cry out. (Mark 6:47 ff).

The modern researcher, failing to take account of the mythical nature of the whole, will discount this scene
and thus miss a crucial clue to the docetic origin of gospel Jesus.

[getting off soap box]

Jake