Vinnie

Persoanlly, I don't think three of the canonical Gospels were in existence at the time. Ergo, that which did not exist at the time could not be found in that library.

Vinnie

Vorkosigan

I'll make a prediction. No Christian documents will be found, but if they are found, there will be no mention of the letters of Paul, and nothing of the later gospel legends (JtB, Pilate, etc).

Vorkosigan

Vinnie

You don't think Pilate or JBap were historical people?

Vinnie

Geoff Hudson

According to Paul Berry, in 1862, a German archaeolgist Alfred Keisling discovered the Christian insription CHRISTIANOS at Pompeii approximately 10 miles from Herculaneum.

There were Jewish communities in a number of Roman cities including Pompeii and Puteoli near to Herculaneum. It has puzzled me why the NT appears to have no early missionary activities to Roman cities, when this would seem to be an obvious first choice. It is my opinion that some of "Peter's" activities were in these cities and not in Joppa etc.

Geoff

Vorkosigan

No, I don't think they were incorporated into the NT legends until a later date.

Vinnie

On what grounds do you see Jesus' baptism by John and his crucifixion by Pilate as being legendary?

Vinnie

mike_decock

I said he was an imperfect healer, not inept.

Why would an omnipotent God in human form be unable to perform miracles?

You've shifted the focus of my statement to the apostles "idiocy" from my original point, that a supposedly "perfect" man showed impatience.

Maybe he never publically designated himself as Messiah because he wasn't the Messiah.

-Mike...

mike_decock

Maybe the original Mark had a different "good news" or maybe none at all. I have no idea how much Mark has been modified since it's original writing. I'm just speculating on a "what-if" scenario that I think would be amusing.

-Mike...

Vinnie

I have no clue. Maybe someone who thinks the historical Jesus of Nazareth possessed omnipotence can answer that question for you?

We cannot naively grant historicity to Mark's polemic driven portrayal of Jesus' disciples.

Further, I am not sure what you mean by a perfect man? And if you define a perfect human so as to include never being angry/aggrivated/impatient then sure, Jesus wasn't perfect. I really don't know what perfect means here though? And I am sure that not all Christians (most of which recognize that it is official doctrine that Jesus was fully human) will argue Jesus was perfect in a naive fashion. But maybe you meant "sinless" rather than perfect?

Uh, isn't that what I said? I'll repeat (notice the bold):


And actually my comment was inaccurate. The "messianic secret" is very complex and does not necessarily" or "solely" stem from that. What I said above is, as best as I can tell, similar to Wrede's explanation: Jesus never claimed to be Messiah but Mark thought he was and needed to create this secrecy. Of course many scholars today would find Wrede's understanding too simplistic and I tend to agree with them.

I do think that it may be part of the messianic secret though. I agree with Sanders that the Synoptic authors and the Christians before them and after them all thought Jesus was the Messiah. But we see that Mark, Matthew and Luke could cite little direct evidence and what they did cite is qualified (e.g. the "Who do you say I am" account). But the messianic secret in Mark is probably much more complex than that.

Vinnie

Vorkosigan

JBap -- all other appearances of Jbap in the gospels are constructions there to attack him and elevate Jesus in relation to him. Therefore Mark's is probably as well. Josephus specifically denies claims central to JBap in the gospels and makes no mention of his connection to Jesus.

Pilate: in the earliest non-gospel reference, Pilate is simply used as a marker to date Jesus's death. The whole passion is a fiction built off of OT chunks, therefore all details in it are suspect, including the fact of Pilate's involvement.

It is not so much that I think they are fictional, it is that I do not know of any good reason to accept anything the gospels say about the life of Jesus.

Vorkosigan