Doug Shaver

I think the question is how those evidences affect the weighting between pure fiction and embellished (or minimal) history, taking all other relevant evidence into consideration. That other relevant evidence includes all the other Christian writings from that period. The gospels, like the Pauline corpus, cannot be properly evaluated as if they were the only data pertinent to the issue of Jesus' historicity.

I would infer that for Mark's story purposes, whatever those were, he wanted his fictional teacher to be (a) somehow connected with John the Baptist and (b) a martyr. The former dictated the timing, and therefore the perpetrators, of the latter.

It is not obvious to me that Mark was trying to convince anyone that the central character of his story was the Messiah.

That is possible. But then you have to explain how someone so obscure could have gotten deified so soon after his death.

Verisimilitude. Only children have always been uncommon. Also, the suggestion that his immediate family did not recognize his giftedness would likely have served Mark's polemical purposes.

I'm not sure, either, but if all the other evidence, considered in toto, suggests there was no such man, then that's a mighty slender thread on which to hang a historicist hypothesis.

Whether it needs explanation depends on who would have been embarrassed by it.

Again, for whom would it have been an embarrassment?

I don't see why that's any kind of problem, except on the assumption that we should expect all the NT writings to be consistent.

I don't know about "clever," but I see nothing improbable about a story of a martyred teacher where the teacher expects to be martyred. And, even in a fictional context, I would not infer, from his expectation of martyrdom, any conscious intention to make it happen.

I don't see why.

Because he was telling a story about a martyred teacher, not about a divine savior who was more powerful than death itself.

I don't think Mark's story, in his own mind, was about the origins of Christianity, except to this extent. In his day, some sects were claiming a Jewish origin for Christianity (whatever they thought Christianity was, at that time) with a foundation in the Jerusalem church. Mark wanted to make those Jewish founders, or alleged founders, look like fools.

Yeah, it could, but only if we assume historicity.

We can infer from Paul's writings (and other Christian documents from not long after Paul's time) that Jesus had been deified, or all but deified, by the middle of the first century. I think it's very hard to explain how that could have happened to a man so unimpressive that, within a generation of his death, nobody could remember anything significant about him.

Solo

The passion plot is Mark's masterpiece. Jesus not defending himself against capital charges before Pilate (15:5) fulfills Isaiah 53:7 (("He was oppressed and afflicted, yet he did not open his mouth; he was led like a lamb to the slaughter, and as a sheep before her shearers is silent, so he did not open his mouth."). At the same time, Pilate - who would be naturally ignorant of the Jewish scripture would interpret the 'silence' of Jesus by the classical Roman saying Furiosi nulla voluntas est (A madman has no will (of his own)). The trial before the Sanhendrin and Pilate further fulfills Paul's maxim of 1 Cor 1:23:

we preach Christ crucified, an offence to the Jews and folly to Gentiles.......

Jiri

TedM

Hi Doug. Thanks for taking the time to share your thoughts on all of the items.

I was thinking on this that Mark's Jesus seemed to make a lot of effort to keep his powers and true identity unknown to the masses. This could be a plot device to make his crucifixion more believable. Or it could be that there was a HJ that really was not well-known to the masses.

If the latter, why would he be considered the Messiah?
1. He really did talk about being raised from the dead and some thought they saw him
2. Although his teachings did not have a big impact, he resembled a 'sage Messiah' which some at the time expected.
3. His death was viewed as a paschal sacrifice by some
4. some or all of the above took root with some who put a lot more emphasis on his death and resurrection as a fulfillment of Messianic scripture, including Paul

aa5874

In the short-ending of gMark not even the the dead body of Jesus was seen.


Jesus did have a MASSIVE impact in gMark.

Mr 1:28 - Mark 1.32-33Mark 2.1-2Mark 3 Jesus in gMark had a MASSIVE impact.

But, in gMark Jesus did not teach about being a paschal lamb.

This is what the author said Jesus taught.

Mr 9:31 - Mr 10:34 - Jesus was not a lamb in gMark but one who would SMITE the shepherd.

Mr 14:27 -
Jesus did not need to exist in gMark, only belief is required.

It makes very little sense for the author of gMark to claim Jesus actually walked on water and was transfigured and was witnessed by the disciples WHEN such things were mostly likely false.

GakuseiDon

Doesn't Paul tell us why? Rom 1:3-4:

[Christ Jesus. . .] who came from the seed of David according to the flesh, who was appointed Son of God in power according to the Spirit of holiness by his resurrection from the dead

Jesus was appointed Son of God due to his resurrection by God. If there was a missing body and visions of Jesus, then that might have been enough to make them think that Jesus had been resurrected as the "first-fruits" of a general resurrection, and the Messianic Age was about to begin.

As for "nobody could remember anything significant about him": is there enough evidence to support that? Q and Papias hint at oral traditions being in existence, though both have gone (if Q ever existed at all). We weren't left with much, but that's not quite the same thing as nobody being able to remember. Luke and John suggest that there was a lot more material available.

Does anyone know any passage in the early epistles where people complained about a lack of recollection of the life of Christ? (I think I'll make that a separate thread)

dog-on

No, but then again, the early epistles don't seem to recollect the life of Christ either.

Doug Shaver

Those are all among the usual historicist interpretations of Mark. For the sake of discussion I'll stipulate that they're all plausible in the following sense. If the question is: How can we make any sense of Mark on the assumption that there is something in there about the real Jesus of Nazareth? then the points on your list are among the credible possible answers.

The question ought to be instead: How can we make any sense of Mark when we read him in light of all the other first- and second-century writings about Jesus the Christ? An answer of the sort, "He was a real man who ____," is possible. I don't think it's among the best possible answers.

Doug Shaver

Any missing-body hypothesis, it seems to me, has to incorporate some version of one of the gospels' the empty-tomb stories. Then it has to explain how the disciples became convinced that the reason for the missing body was that Jesus was alive again. You suggest visions. But what would have set them up, psychologically, to have such visions, if not his having been an extremely charismatic person during his lifetime?

I don't need it. It's those who claim that people did remember something significant who need evidence.

Nonexistent documents cannot be used as evidence for anything. All we know about Papias is what Irenaeus tells us, and all we know about Irenaeus on that point is that he apparently had a book that he believed, for reasons we can only guess about, had been written by some bishop named Papias.

We know a lot about what the patristic writers believed. We know next to nothing about why they believed any of it, because they never tell us.


Whether the "not much" that we're left with is memories of Jesus, or something else, is the question at issue.

Sure, they do. But how did they know? Where did they get their information about that other material? Try answering that without assuming your conclusion.

TedM

Fair enough.


An appearance/vision does not require a missing tomb, so I would not have that requirement. I would not require an 'extremely charismatic' personality either. What about the timing of the death being during passover and Jesus' suggestion that he could forgive sins, or that he would sacrifice his life for others' sins, combined with belief that maybe he was the Messiah of Isaiah 53? What about Jesus himself saying he would be raised? What about people being attracted to his loving character or believing he had performed a few miracles? None of these require a charismatic personality.

Johnny Skeptic

The entire group of women at the tomb forgot that Jesus said that he would rise from the dead until the angel reminded them of it. Even the empty tomb did not convince Peter and Mary Magdalene that Jesus had risen from the dead. The texts imply that virtually no one except for Jesus believed that he would rise from the dead. Group visions or hallucinations of a risen Jesus are out of the question. You know that that did not happen. The Gospels and 1 Corinthians 15:3-8 are fairy tales. We just do not currently know all of the details, and probably never will. Sometimes, we have to be content not knowing what happened thousands of years ago.