NOGO

Interesting!
Acts tells us how the "word" was brought to the Gentiles while GLuke has many Jewish nationalist views of the Messiah.

Paul on the other hand tells us that Jesus is the saviour of all humanity and that this was planned from the begining of the world.

If the author of Acts saw Christianity as salvation for all humanity then (from the JM point of view) why did he not show this in GLuke instead of the very nationalist elements.

If these two documents are fictional how does one account for the change in perspective. I believe that this is the reason Doherty needs Acts much later than GLuke.

I came to this conclusion as I was writing my "God's Plan - a challenge to Christians" thread which I posted yesterday.

This is also a problem for Christians since it shows that Jesus' own message was essential directed at Jews alone and it was the apostles who brought "salvation" to the Gentiles.

Radorth

I see. So if 98% of the American population thinks Jesus really existed, but not Robin Hood or King Arthur, then it's because they were indoctrinated by a militant suppressive religion. Is that correct?

Sub- conspiracy theory number 45, by a member of the persecuted, ever-enlightened minority.

Criminy. Are you sure I am the one wasting your time?

I really don't care if anyone jumps in on "my side." I realize some Christians don't like my style but I believe they do "jump in" when they see the truth being tortured to death. You may think everyone who reads these ( rather large) threads does so for a laugh, but I do not think so. But if they do, they can't help but learn something from your wonderful arguments. So what's the problem?

I don't know. You brought it up and I was questioning your assertion and definition of "all scholars." Glad you judged Bede almost "a scholar."

In some ways, this is the most interesting comment of all. So almost nobody believes in Robin and Arthur even though they likely had prototypes, but almost everybody believes Jesus was a real person, even though he never existed at all.

I don't suppose it's possible that say, half of all Americans would call Doherty a nutball, for many of the reasons Durant listed, and not because they are just indoctrinated from birth or fools like myself. Personally I think people are a lot wiser than JM er's will give them credit for. I thnk they apply Occam's Razor in a subconscious way, and I do not think they are biased by what I would call an intellectually debilitating cynicism.

You talk about Doherty's integrity while knocking Durant's (calling him "target practice") but I'm sorry, it is Doherty who needs to be knocked down to where he belongs (around here anyway). He's a writer grinding a big axe, who will never be read or believed by 1% of the population, while the ever enlightened ones here think the other 99% are just too dumb to get it.

It always amazes me how many morons the hardened skeptic's point of view leaves in it's wake.

So anyway Vork, using the logic you applied to me, what would it tell you if 99% of the population heard your JM theories and decided you were a little off in the head?

Rad

Radorth

Nogo:

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quote:
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Originally posted by Radorth
there is no need at all for him to argue that Acts was written decades after Luke (a very disputable claim), since this has nothing to do with his thesis.

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Interesting!
Acts tells us how the "word" was brought to the Gentiles while GLuke has many Jewish nationalist views of the Messiah.

Paul on the other hand tells us that Jesus is the saviour of all humanity and that this was planned from the begining of the world.

If the author of Acts saw Christianity as salvation for all humanity then (from the JM point of view) why did he not show this in GLuke instead of the very nationalist elements.

If these two documents are fictional how does one account for the change in perspective. I believe that this is the reason Doherty needs Acts much later than GLuke.

I came to this conclusion as I was writing my "God's Plan - a challenge to Christians" thread which I posted yesterday.

This is also a problem for Christians since it shows that Jesus' own message was essential directed at Jews alone and it was the apostles who brought "salvation" to the Gentiles.

______________________________________

Tell it to Carrier, from whom the quote comes.

And thanks for the help.

Rad

NOGO

I am sorry, Radorth.
I should have made it clear that the words you posted were from Carrier.

Radorth

Yeah everybody keeps saying they will never pick at the lowly "scab" Rad again, but they seldom can hold out, I assume because either

1. They presume most readers to be morons

2. My own satire hits a nerve on occasion, and they feel the need to defend the glaring leaps of faith and logic I point out.

I can think of a number of ways to raise the level of debate here, but that would require more posters unwilling to refer to serious historians like Durant as "target practice" I think.

We're all pretty much frail, biased and hypocritical sinners here bub. That realization would itself raise the bar a mile, I assure you. But then of course folks might start thinking they need a saviour just like the lowly Christians.

Ya just can't win.

Rad

GreggLD1

Yeesh! Long post, Bede. I bet Vork is still working on his response. I'm just going to discuss a few of your points below:I'm more of an agnostic myself. Prior to that, I was a New Thought or metaphysical Christian. Actually, the idea that Jesus was purely mythical would not have especially damaged my belief system when I was a New Thought Christian, partly because I was pretty open to "new" spiritual ideas anyway and also because I was comfortable thinking of things in purely spiritual or metaphysical terms.The problem is, so many of the "biographical" details can be recognized as paralleling similar events in the Jewish scriptures. Others seem to have been specifically written to address issues that the writers' communities were dealing with at the time. And Jesus' trial, beating, crucifixion, and resurrection can be recreated almost in its entirety by stringing together passages from "OT" scriptures. As for Jesus' parables and other teachings, the notion that they are unique, innovative, and "clearly" sprang from a single great mind has been shown to be naive.Could you tell me where Paul explicitly refers to the crucifixion as a real event on earth? Also, briefly, what was the Greek translation debate about? Just curious.

As to "no clue" where the idea of a cosmic crucifixion came from, this is incorrect. How can we just ignore, for example, Hellenistic cosmology, dying/rising savior god cults, the suffering/sacrificial and redemptive themes found in the Jewish scriptures, the practice of midrash which was widespread at this time, etc.? Christians did not live in a vacuum. It's hardly surprising some of them came to believe that their suffering, dying savior underwent a "cosmic" crucifixion. Equating scriptural references to "hanging on a tree" with the ubiquitious symbol of Roman authority would have been difficult to resist. As the earthly powers and authorities crucified those who defied their rule, so the heavenly powers crucified Jesus.

Plus, the failure to mention any specific details of an earthly crucifixion (even who ordered it, or where it took place) in the entire corpus of NT letters and epistles, not just in Paul. Although it's strange enough that Paul, who desired to experience Christ's sufferings and know the power of his resurrection, tells of taking a trip to Jerusalem and doesn't mention visiting Calvary or the empty tomb.

And let's listen to Paul in Romans 3:21:

"But now, apart from law, the righteousness of God has been disclosed, and is ATTESTED BY THE LAW AND THE PROPHETS, the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ for all who believe."

Disclosed by who? Why no mention of those who saw Jesus crucified and then saw and touched his resurrected body? Why is the witness of Scripture given priority, and not the witness of those who knew the Christ in the days of his flesh, both before and after his resurrection?

This is not an isolated statement. Whenever any of the early Christian writers talk about Jesus' sacrifice, they quote scripture and talk about their knowledge coming from Scripture and revelation. Paul says he got his gospel "from no man." No one has anything to say about eyewitnesses to Jesus' ministry coming and telling them the good news that a man who was recently crucified outside Jerusalem was actually the incarnate Word whose death and resurrection had secured humankind's salvation. Paul even has the nerve to say that his experience of the risen Christ was no different from the other apostles'!Or they can be treated as independent sources testifying to the existence of a widespread and diverse religious movement with primarily Jewish and Hellenistic roots, based on the worship of a divine Son who had undergone a redemptive sacrifice quite similar to those of other dying/rising savior gods.Nope. Not when it's so obvious, and not when coaxing such things out of scripture (via midrash) was standard practice at the time. I have heard Christians argue that the "day star, son of Dawn" who falls from heaven in one OT passage is a reference to Lucifer! That Christians have been torturing the Jewish scriptures for centuries trying to justify their beliefs is old news--ask any Rabbi.Nope. Coupled with the disciples' falling asleep on Jesus three times in the Garden, it's evident that Mark is using a dramatic device here. And you can't be ignorant of the fact that the denial appears in all three Synoptics, and that more than a few scholars now believe that John did base his gospel on at least one of them.While I don't think that's what Vork meant, I also don't agree with him myself as to the reason for this passage. I think it's there to address the issue of Jews rejecting the Christian message.From a Rabbi, perhaps. From the Son of God? And why don't Luke and John report this? And is it just a coincidence that this phrase comes in the middle of a bunch of other "historical details" that can ALSO be found in scripture?

Gregg

Bede

Hi Gregg,

Most of your points have been addressed at length on these boards (without much hope of resolution), so I won't restart any old bun fights.

A point you correctly point out is that we can find many motifs used in the NT in other sources. However, you need to be extremely careful with this - the motifs are used in different ways and the crucifixion itself is without precedent. The dying and raising stuff might be a parallel to the resurrection but it doesn't help with Jesus's death. Painting a theological or political cover over historical events by adding, subtracting and reemphasising is widely done. Look at Shakespeare's history plays and how they skillfully adapt the War of the Roses to modern (Tudor and Stuart) concerns. So you need to be a bit more subtle with the OT and Hellenistic material than you are being.

Also, Mark seems to sometimes be elevated to a creative genius par excellence with a grasp of the rich tapestry of religious ideas of his time that beggers belief. His Greek is very poor and even though he is clearly a clever chap, you do not get the breadth of education the level of creativity he is credited with requires without the same education that would mean he would write more correctly.

Finally, on pagan parallels try this from a Cambridge classicst of my acquaintance: http://www.bede.org.uk/frazer.htm or for more in depth background on the hellenistic religious mileau in which Christianity grew up, Robin Lane Fox's "Pagans and Christians".

Yours

Bede

Bede's Library - faith and reason

Peter Kirby

Gregg writes: "coaxing such things out of scripture (via midrash) was standard practice at the time."

Like the thing about pseudepigraphy being considered honest in antiquity, I hear claims about "midrash" all the time without reference to specifics. Here is what I know to be true about midrash-type activity: (1) Rabbis would fill in details of the events in Old Testament times, such as the life of Moses. (2) Qumran sectarians, for example, would draw on contemporary experience and find referents to that experience in the Hebrew Scriptures. Here is what I am unsure about: ancient Jews were in the habit of taking oddball interpretations of the Tanakh and forming whole stories and events about roughly contemporaneous times (i.e. not the times of scripture) without any precedent in experience. Is there any evidence for this specific form of "Contemporary Whole-Cloth Midrash" outside of Christianity in antiquity?

best,
Peter Kirby

Gregg

I don't understand how you can say this, Bede, I really don't. I mean, what is so surprising about the Christians thinking that Jesus was crucified? That was the way the present earthly powers and authorities dealt with enemies of the existing order. Why shouldn't the demonic powers and authorities in the lowest heaven have used the same method on the Christ? And again, midrashic interpretation of Scripture provided support for this belief with its references to "hanging on a tree."

And what IS it about Jesus' death by crucifixion that makes it so different from other dying/rising savior god beliefs? They all died in unique ways too. The common factor is that they all died. So Jesus died by crucifixion...why NOT? With all the symbolism inherent in that form of death, all the vivid imagery, the familiarity people would have with the details, why SHOULDN'T those Logos/Messiah worshippers who believed the Logos/Messiah had undergone a redemptive death and resurrection have believed crucifixion had been the method of execution?

(And evidently there were Christians who did NOT believe in "Christ, crucified." What a weird state of affairs. The faith starts with eyewitnesses to the crucifixion and resurrection going out and spreading the good news, yet in a very short time, and with many of those eyewitnesses still alive, there are Christians going around denying the crucifixion, THE central event of the faith. But not surprising if we understand that there were Christian sects that taught the Logos/Christ as a Revealer, one who saved by imparting divine knowledge, while other sects brought in Jewish notions of sacrifice/suffering and redemption and/or dying/rising savior god mythology.) But you have just compared Mark with Shakespeare, who is widely regarded as one of the most brilliant writers, not to mention "subtle" and creative geniuses in human history.

I do not agree that "Mark" would have needed to be a creative genius on or surpassing Shakespeare's level to have written his gospel, and I do not understand why he would have needed a "grasp of the rich tapestry of religious ideas of his time that beggars belief." All he needed was an intimate familiarity with the beliefs and traditions of his own Christian community, which had already synthesized the religious and philosophical ideas of his time for him. Just because he wrote the story, doesn't mean it was necessarily a "do-it-yourself" project.

Not only that, it's been observed that the structure of Mark may be modeled on the Jewish liturgical calendar. So Mark may have had a model to begin with--he didn't have to come up with his own outline. And building a story from that outline using bits and pieces and sometimes whole chunks of Scripture--does that really require "creative genius" on a Shakespearean level? Please. Give me an outline and more good source material than you can shake a stick at, and I could probably fashion a pretty good story out of it myself.

Also, I think you're looking at things too much from a historical perspective. I don't think people are aware how much they absorb, much of it unconsciously, from the world around them. We look back at Mark and say, "Oh, he couldn't possibly have known all this stuff." But he LIVED in this world, he walked and talked in it. He surely had teachers in his community, some of them perhaps with more intelligence, more experiences, and more knowledge than he. And if he was anybody in his community, he certainly would have been aware of challenges, theological and political controversies both within and outside the community, etc.

Oh well, as you say, we'll probably never resolve these issues satisfactorily. I guess we'll have to just agree to disagree! Yeah, right.

Gregg

Gregg

Peter,

I have to admit, at the moment I'm not the person to ask. I need a lot more education. I probably do need to use the term more carefully, because actually I don't think Christians were doing strict midrashic interpretation-I think it was more that this practice provided an impetus for what they DID end up doing.

There's certainly evidence that Christians were willing to go to considerable lengths to make the Jewish scriptures fit their theology. Having Jesus live in "Nazareth" to fulfill a scripture that really had nothing to do with someone being from Nazareth, for example.

In the mythicist view, Christians came to believe that God had revealed the existence of the Son, as well as the Son's redemptive act ("The mystery hidden for ages and generations...now made manifest to his saints...Christ in you, the hope of glory" Col. 1:26,27), in the Scriptures. So, originally, you had Christians searching the Scriptures, which they believed God had "opened their eyes" to read correctly, for information about the Son. And it can't be denied that Paul and the epistle writers clearly cite the Scriptures--not the apostles--as their primary (or even sole) witness to, and source of information about, Christ and his redemptive act.

Mark, I think, may have inherited this approach to Scripture, but he took it in yet another direction. I've been heavily influenced by John Shelby Spong's "Liberating the Gospels" (Spong, incidentally, is a historicist), which is based in turn on the theories of British biblical scholar Michael D. Goulder. In Spong and Goulder's view, what Mark wanted to do was tell the Christ story in a way that paralleled the Jewish scriptures--in part from a desire to provide his community with a set of liturgical readings to replace the Jewish liturgical calendar, and in part to demonstrate the superiority of Christianity to the old system of Temple, Law, etc.

I thought I'd close with some quotes from Doherty's review of "Liberating the Gospels." But first, in reply to your question, if Goulder/Spong's theory is correct, then I don't think you're going to find any evidence of this form of "midrash" outside of Christianity. In this view, the gospel was written for specific reasons, to fill some very specific needs--most importantly, the need of Jewish Christians to understand their new faith in the light of their old faith, and to explain why the new was superior to the old. I don't think you're going to find many historical situations containing essentially the same combination of elements that led the writing of Mark's gospel.Doherty's discussion of Spong/Goulder's liturgical theory is very lengthy and in-depth, so I'd recommend reading the review yourself (or checking out Spong's book) to learn more about it.

Gregg