Layman

The tradition is not very early, since Paul never mentions it

Is it your contention that Paul knew of and wrote about everything that all Christian sects believed about Jesus? And that everything he wrote came down to us? And aren't you the one claiming that Paul only wrote about what God himself had told him?

Toto

Excuse my lack of precision. If I spend more time at this, I might catch these things.

There is no evidence of an early tradition for the Baptism. Paul does not mention it, nor do any other early Christian documents that can be dated before Mark.

Apologists are left claiming that the baptism must have been part of oral tradition. But there is no way of knowing if there was an oral tradition based on an actual event (which presumably did not include a voice from heaven or the holy spirit in the form of a dove) or if Mark invented the incident as a plot devise for his own purposes.

People who don't know Greek should also not throw stones.

Layman

I definitely think you should spend more time on these things and suggest that doing so may indeed help you be coherent.

Which documents do you date before Mark?

Well, if I claimed that I was an expert in Greek you might have a point. But I've claimed no such thing.

Toto

Galatians 1:11-12: "For I would have you know, brothers, that the gospel preached by me is not the product of men. For I did not receive (parelabon, from paralambano) it from any man, nor was I taught it, but (I received it) through a revelation of/about Jesus Christ."

Layman

It is not just the usage of the term "recieved" Toto. Try again.

And you have yet to respond to my earlier criticism of the fantastically broad interpretation you give to the term "gospel."

leonarde

If I may weigh in on this particular point:

1)for the apostles (and probably a wider array of
disciples encountering the pre-Crucifixion Jesus)
the realization of His Divinity, that He really was the Messiah, was a long, step-by-step process:
Peter seems to have been ahead of the curve on this (and perhaps that is why he and John ran to
the Tomb on Easter Sunday after they received the
first report of the Tomb's emptiness).

2)for Paul this order was reversed: his vision on
the Road to Damascus both ceased Saul/Paul's persecution of and] convinced him that Jesus was indeed divine.

3)this occurred without any contact with the flesh-and-blood Jesus. Yet for all practical purposes Paul was an "instant" (or nearly so)Christian.

4)the good news (gospel) was that Jesus was who
His disciples claimed him to be but for Paul this
all came in a revelation, not from the disciples having convinced him.

5)the above doesn't mean that Paul didn't
ask questions about Jesus and His teachings. It merely means that the kernel of the Good News was
Paul's from the first day of his conversion.

Cheers!

Layman

I just want to add a comment on this part of Carrier's "refutation" of Pearson.

In attempting to refute Pearson, Carrier seems to assume that Luke unequivocally places Jesus' birth after the reign of Herod. That is clearly not the case.

Luke is quite specific that this occurred "[i]n the time when Herod was King of Judaea...." Luke 1:5. This is quite consistent with Matthew's account that Jesus was born "in the days of Herod the king." Matth. 2:1.

Skeptical

Carriers point is that when Luke states:

"In those days Caesar Augustus issued a decree that a census should be taken of the entire Roman world. (This was the first census that took place while Quirinius was governor of Syria.)" (NIV Luke 2:1-2)

he clearly _does_ place the birth of Jesus after Herod since we know Herod died in 4BCE and Quirinius was governor of Syria in 6CE.

Luke 2 is much more specific than the verse you quote that Jesus has not been born yet, and uses the census an an explanation to place the birth in Bethlehem. No sufficient explanation has been offered to explain this contradiction with Mat. as Carrier quite clearly shows in his essay. (despite many tortured attempts by apologists to explain away the problem)

If you want to discuss it, this topic is probably worthy of a separate thread of its own and I for one will be glad to participate.

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Layman

Maybe in the near future we can do a separate thread. But for Carrier's theory to be true, he has to assume that "In the days of Herod" (how is that unclear?) does not apply to Jesus' birth and that there is no overlap between John the Baptist' gestation and Jesus' conception. Moreover, he has to assume a lengthy time gap between the announcement of Jesus' incarnation and the actual incarnation. These are all problematic assumptions.

Benjamin Franklin

Layman wrote

“According to Tacitus, we know of a Roman-style census being enforced by Roman troops in a client kingdom. Notably, this Roman census took place in a client-kingdom governed by Archelaus the Younger of Cappadocia, who had family ties to Herod. Paul Barnett, Jesus and the Rise of Early Christianity, at 99.
Also, there is additional evidence of Rome's willingness to impose its census requirements on provinces that it did not directly rule. August initiated a Roman census in Egypt in 9/10 CE. Although not a state set up exactly like Judea, Egypt was given a greater-than-normal measure of local control and had their own court systems.
So it seems that it is not unthinkable or impossible that the Romans would have expected or required a local ruler to conduct a census. Nor even would it have been odd for the Romans to intervene directly to make sure it was carried out properly. “

All you have shown is that there is an possibility of a census in Judea under King Herod because there were censuses conducted in other similar kingdoms but you have not offered any direct evidence that there is there was a census in Judea under King Herod. Yes this is an argument from silence but one which I think it is valid because of the following reasons

1. A census is not something that occurs every other day, it is reasonable to assume that if there was a census, some historian would haven taken note and mentioned it (I have to admit, this argument might not be be particularly strong, I need more time to think about it)

2. Luke states that it was an empire-wide census, and thus it is highly unlikely that if there was one it would have gone unnoticed and nmentioned by historians

3,. The Jews have an aversion to census since King David’s time and thus a census would have been a noteworthy event, something Josephus would almost certainly have mentioned.

You quoted from Pearson

“But the supposition that there was a census in Herod's kingdom is necessary for much of the material in Josephus to make sense; contrary to received opinion on the matter, Josephus records a great deal of indirect evidence that a careful and detailed system of census and taxation existed under Herod.”

But as Richard Carrier has pointed out, Pearson only presented evidence of detailed taxation which did not necessary entailed a census. I find it weird that instead of mentioning that was a census directly, Josephus would let readers read between the lines to infer that there as a census to make sense of his material.


Can you name me the other scholars and their books/articles where they try to defend the historicity of Luke. Thanks. So far all that I have read think Luke is in error. I am familiar with Craig Blomberg but in his attempts to defend the historical reliability of the gospels, he fequently goes again the opinion of the majority of the biblical scholars.

BF

[ October 08, 2002: Message edited by: Benjamin Franklin ]

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