spin

Which seems to be that you don't understand what you are talking about.

While it is true that some scholars are historians, you have committed one of the crassest logical blunders in the books.

Historians do PhDs in... umm, history at universities that have a recognized history department, not biblical studies in a seminary.

You are yet again not dealing with the issue under discussion, here the value of the criterion of embarrassment, but explaining why you are clueless on the subject, ie you leave the analysis to your betters and trust them to do so despite their lack of relevant training and their natural tendencies.

outhouse

Your statements are unsubstantiated, less sniping from tree tops within the fringe positions you hold dear.

Your talking down those above you. :huh: Where do you get off? who do you think you are?

Pretty arrogant about your position I might add.

Vorkosigan

Steve, you're just casting your pearls before swine here.

Vorkosigan.

spin

No content at all. Stop wasting people's time.

TedM

I'm not sure what your basis is for this strange comment. First of all, the passage Steve quoted clearly isn't referring to a precedent of water baptism. It is clear from the context that he is referencing something difficult in the future - after all, anyone can get a water baptism. So, it is not helpful to his case, other than to show that Jesus referred to the fact that his disciples too would be persecuted as he was.

Steve asked:
The answer is that it would not be embarrassing at all if Jesus hadn't been baptized. Why would a man without sin -- which is what Christians believed (read Paul) need to be baptized for the forgiveness of sins? It requires adoptionism to make this point and as I've said I see no reason to conclude that Mark was adoptionist. What is being argued about the 'lack of embarrassment' in Mark, is that Mark was adoptionist, but one has to admit that Matthew, Luke, and John were NOT adoptionist. That is pretty clear from how they have treated the passage. The contemporary evidence from them certainly doesn't help the Markan adoptionist case, and even if that was Mark's position, as I pointed out, it doesn't 'do away' with the argument from embarrassment as it pertains to those other 3 gospels: Those writers most likely BELIEVED in the historicity of the baptism because it would have simply been easier to not include anything about the baptism in their accounts if they were just making things up.

aa5874

You have provided no actual evidence that the Baptism event was embarrassing to the Jesus cult of antiquity.

Ignatius, Aristides, Justin Martyr, Clement of Rome, Clement of Alexandria, Hippolytus, Irenaeus, Tertullian, Origen, Arnobius, Eusebius, Optatus, Jerome, Augustine and others show or mentioned no embarrassment by the Baptism event in the Gospels.

PhilosopherJay

Hi TedM,

Because a writer is embarrassed by certain data, we cannot leap to the conclusion that the data reflects history or that the people who changed the data believed the data to be historical..

Take the fact that Superman could only jump or leap in the early Superman comic books from 1938-1941. At a certain point, it became embarrassing to the writers that their superhero could only leap while rival superhero Captain Marvel could actually fly. Captain Marvel flew for the first time in Whiz comics #5 (June, 1940), while Superman did not fly until May-June 1941 and did not fly regularly until Oct. 1943. (http://www.comicscube.com/2011/08/re...s-captain.html).

The writers were embarrassed by the fact that their super-hero could only leap a few miles while a rival character could fly countless miles. It made him seem weaker than Captain Marvel. (Note that Captain Marvel outsold Superman comics in the 1940's.) The solution for the writers was simply to change the story line.

I do not think anybody can argue that the writers believed in an historical Superman.

Likewise, one can point to many of the cartoons produced in Hollywood in the 1930's. They were filled with racist stereotypes. In the 1950's, when the Civil Rights movement picked up in the United States, these cartoons became an embarrassment to the studios that produced them. Racist parts were edited out and some were pulled off the market.

Obviously, nobody thought that the cartoon characters were historical. The people in charge of the major movie studios were simply embarrassed by the incidents and attitudes depicted.

Again, mystery writer Agatha Christie wrote a book in 1939 called "Ten Little Niggers" based on a British Nursery Rhyme. The title was an embarrassment to American publishers who changed the title to "Ten Little Indians." This title itself became an embarrassment to later publishers who changed the title to "And Then There Were None." At no point did any of the publishers believe that any of the characters or incidents in the book were historical. They always knew that it was fiction.

Since people get embarrassed by fictional as well as historical data, the Criterion of Embarrassment cannot be used to establish historical evidence.

Warmly,

Jay Raskin

TedM

Embarrassment can be overt or implied. Why do YOU think Matthew, Luke, and John all altered the version given by Mark in the ways in which they did? What was their motivation, aa ? When you cry out for 'evidence', I cry out for 'rational thought'.

rlogan

Look at the converse too. Do we say something is likely to be false just because someone is proud of it? Like for example, the crucifixion. Christians are extremely proud of it.

Is the Crucifixion false on account of how proud the Christians are, making it the centerpiece of their religion?

Grog

Perhaps the manner of death has been exaggerated? I notice that there is an account in the Jewish Wars in which a man named Jesus disrupts the Temple during a festival, is taken to the Jewish authorities, beaten, taken to the Roman governor, flogged, then killed inadvertently by a siege Roman siege engine. Perhaps the events surrounding this Jesus serve as a template for the passion story, but the death by siege engine was a little too unceremonious. How much more dramatic to be crucified? In both cases, interestingly, the Roman guilt is diminished...one because it was inadvertent, the other because the governor was reluctant.

Couldn't, as rlogan suggests, this sword can cut both ways...?