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Oct 5, 2022.
Nadine Mesnard Alldridge claims to be a historian bt doesn't seem to know what they do. she says:
Joe Hinman -"...he problem with that analogy is that is up front a fictional work. The Bible is not fictional meaning it is taken as and was written as historical..."
NMA Says:
It is NOT historical. I'm an historian. The only things in it that have ever existed are most of the places and just a few of the people. There is no physical evidence for any of it. This is mine. I wrote it about 20 years ago and no substantiation has been found to refute it since. All holy people know this as fact. It is all based on faith, and is not historical.
Me: First you need to talk about what you think needs to be proved. What historian things: Jesus running aboutworking mirecles. That's about it. What happemedto this guy whosuppossedly worked mirealces? He was cliamed to haverise formthedead, see by a whole town full of people. His words became the world's leadigrelgion and have lasted 2000 years, That's a much better histrical record than the guys who crucified him, Pilate wasonly roven to exist in thelast hundred years.
_____________
NMA:
"Most authentic historians know there is no physical evidence for Jesus. There could have been a guy walking around preaching, but no evidence for him. And he certainly didn't rise from the dead."
Me: Why do we need physical evidence when we have writtigs of people who knew him? Show me physical evidece for Pliny the younger? We do actually have some physical evidence. Chruch of the Holy Seplechur is over the site of the crcifiction and resurrection. Writtimgs of people who knew him: Matthew, John 1 Pete, James, epistles of John. People who knew his best friemds: Paul. Luke,
.
NMA: These are the facts:
.
"We have no physical evidence that Jesus ever existed primarily because nothing was ever written down during his supposed lifetime. There are no contemporaries of Jesus that documented any of it."
Google search:
"Virtually all scholars of antiquity accept that Jesus was a historical figure, although interpretations of a number of the events mentioned in the gospels (most notably his miracles and resurrection) vary and are a subject of debate." (google search)
we have writtigs of people who knew him. Of the Gospels which chronical his life Matt and John knew him.The sight of his death and resurrection that is physical.We have writtings by his brother James, his best friend Peter.Oaul and luke met people who knew him,
NMA"Also, none of the writers of the Bible, including Paul, ever heard him speak let alone met him, not ever. The biographers wrote many decades and even centuries after Jesus supposedly died. The Gospels were all written anonymously and we do not know who they really were."
Me: This is false: I answered this above, Peter, John, John, Matthew, James and they are attested to ny studetsoftheirs such as Pokycarp whoo knew Jon, WE have three writers who knew John.
NMA
According to the Catholic Church, their records say that Jesus was crucified in 33 CE. All that was written about him by sources outside of the Bible, mostly Roman, cannot be called evidence because they all were born after Jesus supposedly died. This includes:
.
Josephus-born 38 CE
Tacitus-born 54 CE
Pliny the Younger-born 61 CE
Suetonius Tranquillus-born 69 CE
Lucian-born about 125 CE"
This is called history, That is what historians d they write about things from before theiriera,we cal it "the past." Sheis using criteria of Jesus myth movementnot real historiogrophy. I dobt that sheis acadmeically trained.
Me: Odd she claims to be a historian and doesnt know what historians do. All histoirans write about periods before they were born. It is not true that we have nothing from people who knew him. Matthew,John, James, Peter, Paul tesifieis to having met many who knew him such as many of the 12.
.
NMA
All supposedly wrote of Jesus. ALL of it was taken from ORAL history, or the writings of people who witnessed none of it.
Me: these are assertions for which she offers no evidence. Factially we know and have works by people who knew him as I show above.
The ancient Iron Age Hebrew people couldn't write. And the scribes the Hebrew hierarchy used did little more than copy the Old Testament over and over again. It was the only thing they thought worthy of being written down. Certainly nothing that was supposedly said by Jesus meant anything to them. They did not record anything happening at the time. And AT THE TIME IT HAPPENED is what constitutes evidence that it DID happen. If they had, then that would be historical, yet they did not.
Me: clearly not true. How dowe have the OT if they couldn;t wrote? The timeof Christ saw Grek inflence andRoman mnflunce they could write,The vast majoirity of scholars accpet Paul's letter as geiuime wo that dispproves her assertion,John Oakes>"By the time of Christ, the chiefinstitution among the Jews was the Synagogue. This institution encouragedthe learning of at least a rudimentary level of Hebrew literacy, at least for the more well off male Jews. I have done some research since
receiving your inquiry. Let me give you what seems to me a fairly careful
scholarly study. It is at http://faculty.biu.ac.il/~barilm/illitera.html"
(https://evidenceforchristianity.org/were-people-literate-in-the-time-of-jesus-r/)
.
NMA:
"It's all nothing but folklore, ALL of it. And until or IF they ever find any evidence that he lived, at all? That is how it remains."
assertion backed by nothing,
_________________________________________________________
NMA:Most of my research I used the Vatican library, often. Even the librarians there (priests) know it has no physical evidence it can use for proof. Nothing but faith.
Joe, you need to research for yourself. I've been doing it for more than 50 years and nothing has changed-nothing new.
Me: do you know the differencein research and documemtation? I am actually a PhlD cndidateim history of ideas, you are not. You arenit an historian/ You are not awqare of the major issues. You thin oral tradition is disproof no it's a way to predseve knwingeim ancient worldbyou don't know your stuff. Historian!
40 comments:
This is a topic I find fascinating. I guess I tend to side with Nadine here. There is no physical evidence of Jesus - statues, coins, texts written by him - so she is right there. The accounts we have were likely written by people who never met him. I think we do have good reason to think he existed, but that does not change the lack of physical evidence.
When you get to he resurrection, I think we have fair evidence that the early Christians believed Jesus was resurrected, but that is quite different to having evidence that it happened, and the issue is very much muddied by later embellishments. I think it pretty clear the author of Mark believed the risen Jesus was first seen in Galilee, which leads me to conclude all those appearances around Jerusalem in the later gospels were just made up. And once you realise that, it becomes quite unclear what the disciples actually saw.
Joe: we have writtigs of people who knew him. Of the Gospels which chronical his life Matt and John knew him.The sight of his death and resurrection that is physical.We have writtings by his brother James, his best friend Peter.Oaul and luke met people who knew him,
Much of that is contentious. That you just take it as fact that the gospels of Matthew and John were written by the disciples really just illustrates that it is indeed "It is all based on faith". If you knew anything about how real history is done, you would have qualified your claims here to acknowledge the uncertainty.
Pix
Joe: Part of my answer to her was to ask why we need it. Secondly, we should not expect such evidence because he was not a roman he was from the part of the world the Romans didn't care about. The Romans did not put third world peasants on coins,
It is about the degree of certainty. Statues and coins give greater certainty than accounts written down decades later.
I agree we would not expect it in this case, but that does not make up for not having it!
Joe: There are two evodences: (1)empty tomb, (2)sightings.
We do not have the empty tomb. We have reports of the empty tomb, but they are uncertain to say the least.
Similarly, we have no sightings, we have reports of sightings, and those reports again are uncertain and contradictory.
Joe: Just because some atheist doubts something doesn't disprove what is doubted.
That is not what I said.
Joe: Of course Mathew and John were written by disciples. Where they written by namesakes> WE don't know and( think John was not unless the name sakes was elder John. We have writings by people who knew John, Papias and Polycarp were his students. Also we are only talking about Jesus existed not proving the resurrection,
Saying "of course they were" is hardly proof! Perhaps you need to learn how history is done yourself.
Joe: you know nothing, I did 12 years in PhD program for history of ideas, that's a hell of a lot more than you know. You don't know how evidence is gathered you don't know the defenses of the stuff you stupidly reject,
And yet you are the one insisting it is a fact that Matthew and John wrote gospels on the basis of what exactly? You really want it to be true? Is that really how history is done?
Pix
Pix, what Joe said was that the gospels were written by disciples (ie, early followers of Christ, or Christians), not that they were written directly by Matthew or John. John and Matthew's names were each used as a "namesake," which was not uncommon in that era. I think the tone and content make it obvious that disciples, not outsiders, wrote these works.
Pix: "And yet you are the one insisting it is a fact that Matthew and John wrote gospels on the basis of what exactly? You really want it to be true? Is that really how history is done?"
Kristen is right, I assume those are Pseudepigrapha. In calling them Matt and John I mean the authors of those docs whoever they were. That should be obvious it's the way it's done. I should have put quote marks around the names but I'm lazy.
Most scholar assume those docs were written by either eye witnesses or members of communities of eye witnesses. You should read Jesus and the eye witnesses by Richard Bauckham. He makes a fine case that John was written by John the Elder who Polycarp mentions. Mark must have been written by Paul's follower John Mark otherwise why name it after an obscure person. Luke must be by Paul's friend Luke. For the same reason. If that was Pseudepigrapha why not call it Peter? Matthew is given the name of an apostle because the claim is the knowledge is on par with that of the twelve.
First Peter claims to be written by an eye witness. Of course Mark has the authority of Peter. No reason to doubt James is by James, except of course its the bible and so must be doubted no matter what.
Of course crutch fathers say that Matt wrote a Gospel. That doesn't prove it's the same Gospel. Given the synoptic problem it's pretty obvious they are following some core of an idea that center around the same story.
"Approximately 76% of Mark finds itself replicated in both Matthew (45%) and Luke (41%), with an additional 18% of Mark finding its way into Matthew’s gospel (10%)."https://pursuingveritas.com/2015/08/07/were-the-gospel-writers-eyewitnesses-matthew/
dyslexia strikes again: "Of course crutch fathers say..."
Another reason to assume eye witness backing for four gospels is the fact that they are all telling the same story. We have to assume the historical reality was a lot like the reports of the for Gospels. Otherwise who dot get away from that one account?
Kristen: Pix, what Joe said was that the gospels were written by disciples (ie, early followers of Christ, or Christians), not that they were written directly by Matthew or John. John and Matthew's names were each used as a "namesake," which was not uncommon in that era. I think the tone and content make it obvious that disciples, not outsiders, wrote these works.
Joe: Kristen is right, I assume those are Pseudepigrapha. In calling them Matt and John I mean the authors of those docs whoever they were. That should be obvious it's the way it's done. I should have put quote marks around the names but I'm lazy.
Here is what Joe put:
"we have writtigs of people who knew him. Of the Gospels which chronical his life Matt and John knew him."
If he actually thinks they are Pseudepigrapha, then this is not just lazy it is lying! Sorry, but there is no other way to put it. We do NOT have the writings of people who knew him, and Joe knows we do not, but he is nevertheless wording it so it appears that we do.
Is that how historians do it? Or apologists? Spoiler alert: It is apologists!
Pix
Joe: Most scholar assume those docs were written by either eye witnesses or members of communities of eye witnesses. You should read Jesus and the eye witnesses by Richard Bauckham. He makes a fine case that John was written by John the Elder who Polycarp mentions. Mark must have been written by Paul's follower John Mark otherwise why name it after an obscure person. Luke must be by Paul's friend Luke. For the same reason. If that was Pseudepigrapha why not call it Peter? Matthew is given the name of an apostle because the claim is the knowledge is on par with that of the twelve.
Find me a scholar - not a fundamentalist scholar - who thinks they were written by eye witnesses. Mark and Luke were not eye witnesses, even if we assume their gospels were written by them, which is not at all certain. Nor was John the Elder.
Joe: First Peter claims to be written by an eye witness. Of course Mark has the authority of Peter. No reason to doubt James is by James, except of course its the bible and so must be doubted no matter what.
All such claims must be considered doubtful at first. Anyone can write a book and claim authorship for someone else in the text. It does not make it true. That is the case for any historical document, as you should know.
Most scholars reject James as the author, for a variety of reasons. What makes you so certain Jesus' brother must be the author? Faith.
Joe: Of course crutch fathers say that Matt wrote a Gospel. That doesn't prove it's the same Gospel. Given the synoptic problem it's pretty obvious they are following some core of an idea that center around the same story.
I am not sure of your point here. Papias said Matthew wrote a book of sayings in Hebrew; it is very unlikely to be the book we have today called the Gospel of Matthew - though it just might be the Q document.
A book of saying helps support the view that Jesus existed to some degree, but far less than a statue or coin. And we do not have the book, just a mention of it in another document.
Joe: Another reason to assume eye witness backing for four gospels is the fact that they are all telling the same story. We have to assume the historical reality was a lot like the reports of the for Gospels. Otherwise who dot get away from that one account?
Looking atthe passion specifically, they all tell the same story up to a point, so it is likely they all drew on the same source, either Mark or the pre-Markan passion narrative. After the empty tomb they diverge wildly, because all that stuff was ade up later, after the different communities went their own way.
Pix
If he actually thinks they are Pseudepigrapha, then this is not just lazy it is lying! Sorry, but there is no other way to put it. We do NOT have the writings of people who knew him, and Joe knows we do not, but he is nevertheless wording it so it appears that we do.
Is that how historians do it? Or apologists? Spoiler alert: It is apologists!
No it's it lying it was accepted literary conation, That is like saying fiction is lying. Moreover the Gospel authors didn't name their books Matthew and John, they don't say who wrote them so they weren't trying to pass them off..
Anonymous said...
Joe: Most scholar assume those docs were written by either eye witnesses or members of communities of eye witnesses. You should read Jesus and the eye witnesses by Richard Bauckham. He makes a fine case that John was written by John the Elder who Polycarp mentions. Mark must have been written by Paul's follower John Mark otherwise why name it after an obscure person. Luke must be by Paul's friend Luke. For the same reason. If that was Pseudepigrapha why not call it Peter? Matthew is given the name of an apostle because the claim is the knowledge is on par with that of the twelve.
Find me a scholar - not a fundamentalist scholar - who thinks they were written by eye witnesses. Mark and Luke were not eye witnesses, even if we assume their gospels were written by them, which is not at all certain. Nor was John the Elder.
The aerialist claims for the Gospels were written by eye witnesses. They all tell the same story. It makes no sense to think some radically different history was manufactured and no one told the truth they all told the same lie. The apocryphal gospels in the early era tells the same stuff. Readings in the Diatesseron are really early, they are the same as canonical.
Joe: First Peter claims to be written by an eye witness. Of course Mark has the authority of Peter. No reason to doubt James is by James, except of course its the bible and so must be doubted no matter what.
All such claims must be considered doubtful at first. Anyone can write a book and claim authorship for someone else in the text. It does not make it true. That is the case for any historical document, as you should know.
That kind of thinking is shallow and avoids the facts. You have knee jerk criteria that says always doubt the bible. The church fathers knew the apostles they passed on the word who wrote what to think anytime could just say Im Peter and all would believe him is daft. they are all liars, everything single statement of faith is from a liar. childish, romanticizing unbelief.
Even if they were not written by eye witnesses the community told and retold the testimony up to the point of making written text then circulated unchanged, at worst they are distillations of eye witness testimony,.
Most scholars reject James as the author, for a variety of reasons. What makes you so certain Jesus' brother must be the author? Faith.
that is not true, you limit your attention to unbelievers who deny hearth so you can't get anything but unbelievers then you assert all the good scholars are unbelievers. Well if they are believers then you assert they are not good. Evangelicals are idiots. But they are not all there is. It is not the case that it;s just unbelievers and evangelicals.,
Joe: Of course church fathers say that Matt wrote a Gospel. That doesn't prove it's the same Gospel. Given the synoptic problem it's pretty obvious they are following some core of an idea that center around the same story.
I am not sure of your point here. Papias said Matthew wrote a book of sayings in Hebrew; it is very unlikely to be the book we have today called the Gospel of Matthew - though it just might be the Q document.
I think it likely that what we know as Matt used the real Matt's saying source the and added a narrative. That would explain why the title.
A book of saying helps support the view that Jesus existed to some degree, but far less than a statue or coin. And we do not have the book, just a mention of it in another document.
Expecting a coin is really stupid, Romans made coins not the Jews. The Romans would never put some middle eastern holy man from another faith on their coin, Saying source is good because that was teaching they took it seriously,
Joe: Another reason to assume eye witness backing for four gospels is the fact that they are all telling the same story. We have to assume the historical reality was a lot like the reports of the for Gospels. Otherwise who dot get away from that one account?
Looking atthe passion specifically, they all tell the same story up to a point, so it is likely they all drew on the same source, either Mark or the pre-Markan passion narrative. After the empty tomb they diverge wildly, because all that stuff was ade up later, after the different communities went their own way.
Again assign real history just fell into the ground from some point on all they had was made up stuff with no relation to what happened is stupid and willing ignorant. Because some liar made up a narrative with no relation to reality everyone forgot what happened after they took pains to remember it and tell it and pass it on, ???,.
Joe: No it's it lying it was accepted literary conation, That is like saying fiction is lying. Moreover the Gospel authors didn't name their books Matthew and John, they don't say who wrote them so they weren't trying to pass them off..
I am saying you were lying when you said "we have writtigs of people who knew him. Of the Gospels which chronical his life Matt and John knew him." You do not believe the gospels were written by Matthew and John, but you nevertheless chose to word it as though they did. It is you who was trying to pass them off as the works of people who knew Jesus, despite later admitting you do not think that is true.
Joe: The aerialist claims for the Gospels were written by eye witnesses. They all tell the same story. It makes no sense to think some radically different history was manufactured and no one told the truth they all told the same lie. The apocryphal gospels in the early era tells the same stuff. Readings in the Diatesseron are really early, they are the same as canonical.
The earliest claims for the gospels can be read in 1 Cor 15. That is the bare-bones story - and it omits the empty tomb.
The earliest full account that we still have is Mark, and Mark clearly believed the risen Jesus was first seen in Galilee, contradicting all the later gospels. If it was really written by Peter's scribe it goes beyond believable to suppose Peter saw the risen Jesus in Jerusalem first, but never told Mark, his own scribe, about it in the decades they were together.
The Diatesseron does not help you. At best it shows the gospels did not change much after they were written. The issue here is that the endings of the four gospels are so very different.
What apocryphal gospels are you thinking about here? The Gospel of Peter agrees with Mark that they first saw the risen Jesus in Galilee.
Joe: That kind of thinking is shallow and avoids the facts.
The fact is that we cannot rely on anything in ancient documents. You want them to be true, so you assume everything in them is fact. That is faith, not history.
Joe: You have knee jerk criteria that says always doubt the bible.
And not just the Bible. No real historian just assumes an ancient author was perfectly accurate, objective and meticulous. Author bias is always assumed.
Joe: The church fathers knew the apostles they passed on the word who wrote what to think anytime could just say Im Peter and all would believe him is daft. they are all liars, everything single statement of faith is from a liar. childish, romanticizing unbelief.
And yet clearly Mark believed the risen Jesus was first seen in Galilee! Either we have to assume Peter kept the Jerusalem appearance secret from him for decades as they worked together, while Peter preached about Jesus' resurrection. Or the Jerusalem appearances were made up.
Joe: Even if they were not written by eye witnesses the community told and retold the testimony up to the point of making written text then circulated unchanged, at worst they are distillations of eye witness testimony,.
What controls were in place to stop new stories getting added to the testimony?
Suppose their opponents started to spread a rumour that the disciples stole the body, what was there to stop someone starting a rumour that actually there was a guard on the tomb?
Joe: that is not true, you limit your attention to unbelievers who deny hearth so you can't get anything but unbelievers then you assert all the good scholars are unbelievers. Well if they are believers then you assert they are not good. Evangelicals are idiots. But they are not all there is. It is not the case that it;s just unbelievers and evangelicals.,
See here, which quotes three scholars, Kummel, Udo Schelle and Norman Perrin.
https://www.earlychristianwritings.com/james.html
Can you find some scholars who say James the brother of Jesus really was the author?
Pix
Joe: I think it likely that what we know as Matt used the real Matt's saying source the and added a narrative. That would explain why the title.
I think that is reasonable.
But now your eye witness is only giving you sayings, not any evidence of an empty tomb, etc.
Joe: Expecting a coin is really stupid, Romans made coins not the Jews. The Romans would never put some middle eastern holy man from another faith on their coin, Saying source is good because that was teaching they took it seriously,
I am not expecting a coin. But the fact that we do not expect a coin does not turn the lack of a coin into evidence!
Joe: Again assign real history just fell into the ground from some point on all they had was made up stuff with no relation to what happened is stupid and willing ignorant.
And yet that is what the evidence points to. Clearly Mark believed the risen Jesus was first seen in Galilee. How do you reconcile that with the later gospels?
Joe: Because some liar made up a narrative with no relation to reality everyone forgot what happened after they took pains to remember it and tell it and pass it on, ???,.
There were undoubtedly numerous stories circulating in the first century about what happened - indeed, Luke tells us just that. Clearly there was no control over who wrote what, nothing to stop new rumours getting invented, whether from wishful thinking or looking in the OT to see what MUST have happened.
Pix
Anonymous said...
Joe: No it's it lying it was accepted literary conation, That is like saying fiction is lying. Moreover the Gospel authors didn't name their books Matthew and John, they don't say who wrote them so they weren't trying to pass them off..
I am saying you were lying when you said "we have writtigs of people who knew him. Of the Gospels which chronical his life Matt and John knew him." You do not believe the gospels were written by Matthew and John, but you nevertheless chose to word it as though they did.
I referred to the authors as Matt and John it was obvious I meant the guys who wrote Matt and Jon. We do have writings of people who knew Jesus. I think Bauckham proved his point John was by elder John. The author of the Johannine epistles wrote the Gospel, and that author calls himself "the elder." Read Jesus an the eye witnesses. I also think 1 Peter was by Peter.
It is you who was trying to pass them off as the works of people who knew Jesus, despite later admitting you do not think that is true.
Those books contain anthric words 0f Jesus and arcuate events and they are passed down from the teaching of eye witnesses. Elder John knew Jesus as Papias says he did,
Joe: The oldest claims for the Gospels were written by eye witnesses. They all tell the same story. It makes no sense to think some radically different history was manufactured and no one told the truth they all told the same lie. The apocryphal gospels in the early era tells the same stuff. Readings in the Diatesseron are really early, they are the same as canonical.
The earliest claims for the gospels can be read in 1 Cor 15. That is the bare-bones story - and it omits the empty tomb.
I think Gospel of Thomas is just as old. I contains Q sayings which means Q is that old.
The earliest full account that we still have is Mark, and Mark clearly believed the risen Jesus was first seen in Galilee, contradicting all the later gospels.
that is bull shit, Mark was the first canonical gospel wrtten, he is by no means the first account of the Gospel.
If it was really written by Peter's scribe it goes beyond believable to suppose Peter saw the risen Jesus in Jerusalem first, but never told Mark, his own scribe, about it in the decades they were together.
I straitened that out before you refuse to think about it,
The Diatesseron does not help you. At best it shows the gospels did not change much after they were written. The issue here is that the endings of the four gospels are so very different.
Get this thorough your head, the readings are early form, they come from a much eelier time.
What apocryphal gospels are you thinking about here? The Gospel of Peter agrees with Mark that they first saw the risen Jesus in Galilee.
Thomas contains Q sayings.
Joe: That kind of thinking is shallow and avoids the facts.
The fact is that we cannot rely on anything in ancient documents. You want them to be true, so you assume everything in them is fact. That is faith, not history.
That is just anti intellectual Bible hatred. you just assume it without facts
Joe: You have knee jerk criteria that says always doubt the bible.
And not just the Bible. No real historian just assumes an ancient author was perfectly accurate, objective and meticulous. Author bias is always assumed.
Neither do they dogmatically assume all ancient documents are by false authors and have it all wrong, No historians are trained to dogmatically doubt all ancient documents. My assumption is that Gospels reflect communities and communities have eye witnesses. I never said anything about perfectly arcuate.
Joe: The church fathers knew the apostles they passed on the word who wrote what to think anytime could just say Im Peter and all would believe him is daft. they are all liars, everything single statement of faith is from a liar. childish, romanticizing unbelief.
And yet clearly Mark believed the risen Jesus was first seen in Galilee! Either we have to assume Peter kept the Jerusalem appearance secret from him for decades as they worked together, while Peter preached about Jesus' resurrection. Or the Jerusalem appearances were made up.
so what does that change? that is your big innovation I will deal with separately.
Joe: Even if they were not written by eye witnesses the community told and retold the testimony up to the point of making written text then circulated unchanged, at worst they are distillations of eye witness testimony,.
What controls were in place to stop new stories getting added to the testimony?
Based upon Acts and known pedagogy of the Jews the whole community gathered for dinner and the eye witness recounted the story every night until they learned it by heart and the witness were there to keep it straight,
Suppose their opponents started to spread a rumour that the disciples stole the body, what was there to stop someone starting a rumour that actually there was a guard on the tomb?
the eye witnesses who saw him walking about after he had risen
Joe: that is not true, you limit your attention to unbelievers who deny hearth so you can't get anything but unbelievers then you assert all the good scholars are unbelievers. Well if they are believers then you assert they are not good. Evangelicals are idiots. But they are not all there is. It is not the case that it;s just unbelievers and evangelicals.,
See here, which quotes three scholars, Kummel, Udo Schelle and Norman Perrin.
https://www.earlychristianwritings.com/james.html
Can you find some scholars who say James the brother of Jesus really was the author?
Not an important issue but I'll work on finding some,
6:33 AM
Anonymous said...
Joe: I think it likely that what we know as Matt used the real Matt's saying source the and added a narrative. That would explain why the title.
I think that is reasonable.
OK
But now your eye witness is only giving you sayings, not any evidence of an empty tomb, etc.
That's really dishonest. There is no basis for the assertion that the story of the empty tomb isn't from first hand observers.
Joe: Expecting a coin is really stupid, Romans made coins not the Jews. The Romans would never put some middle eastern holy man from another faith on their coin, Saying source is good because that was teaching they took it seriously,
I am not expecting a coin. But the fact that we do not expect a coin does not turn the lack of a coin into evidence!
I never used nit being on a coin as evidence of anything, it is nit evidence agaisnt his existence.
Joe: Again assign real history just fell into the ground from some point on all they had was made up stuff with no relation to what happened is stupid and willing ignorant.
And yet that is what the evidence points to. Clearly Mark believed the risen Jesus was first seen in Galilee. How do you reconcile that with the later gospels?
You can't keep milking that one point That does not disprove the resurrection. Mark was not the first proclamation of the resurrection,
Joe: Because some liar made up a narrative with no relation to reality everyone forgot what happened after they took pains to remember it and tell it and pass it on, ???,.
There were undoubtedly numerous stories circulating in the first century about what happened - indeed, Luke tells us just that. Clearly there was no control over who wrote what, nothing to stop new rumours getting invented, whether from wishful thinking or looking in the OT to see what MUST have happened.
the fact of a pre mark redaction does not mean no control. The community was the control,
Luke Timothy Johnson writings of the new Testament talks about scholarship supporting James authorship. Johnson has a book on James. the book add says:
"Johnson boldly identifies the first-century author as none other than James, the brother of Jesus Christ. While modern skepticism casts doubt on this conclusion, early textual witnesses, as well as saints and scholars throughout the centuries, corrobo..."
Johnson is liberal enough that we used his book at Perkins
Luke Timothy Johnson writings of the new Testament talks about scholarship supporting James authorship. Johnson has a book on James. the book add says:
"Johnson boldly identifies the first-century author as none other than James, the brother of Jesus Christ. While modern skepticism casts doubt on this conclusion, early textual witnesses, as well as saints and scholars throughout the centuries, corrobo..."
Johnson is liberal enough that we used his book at Perkins
Joe: I referred to the authors as Matt and John it was obvious I meant the guys who wrote Matt and Jon.
Oh come on! How stupid do you think I am? You said very clearly it was Matt and John, people who knew Jesus.
"we have writtigs of people who knew him. Of the Gospels which chronical his life Matt and John knew him."
You specifically stated the authors of Matthew and John knew Jesus! And yet you later admitted you do not believe that is true.
Joe: We do have writings of people who knew Jesus. I think Bauckham proved his point John was by elder John. The author of the Johannine epistles wrote the Gospel, and that author calls himself "the elder." Read Jesus an the eye witnesses.
Why should we think John the Elder knew Jesus?
Joe: I also think 1 Peter was by Peter.
Most scholars think otherwise.
https://www.earlychristianwritings.com/1peter.html
Joe: Those books contain anthric words 0f Jesus and arcuate events and they are passed down from the teaching of eye witnesses. Elder John knew Jesus as Papias says he did,
But you said the authors of Matthew and John knew Jesus.
"we have writtigs of people who knew him. Of the Gospels which chronical his life Matt and John knew him."
Joe: I think Gospel of Thomas is just as old. I contains Q sayings which means Q is that old.
But again it is just a collection of sayings, so no help with any miracles, empty tomb, etc.
Pix: The earliest full account that we still have is Mark, and Mark clearly believed the risen Jesus was first seen in Galilee, contradicting all the later gospels.
Joe: that is bull shit, Mark was the first canonical gospel wrtten, he is by no means the first account of the Gospel.
I said "The earliest full account that we still have". Thomas may be older, it is not an account, it is a collection of sayings. Certainly there were earlier accounts that we no longer have. But Mark is the oldest full account that we have.
Joe: I straitened that out before you refuse to think about it,
The text explicitly says Jesus was going on ahead to Galilee. It is very clear Mark was not aware of any sightings in Jerusalem before Galilee.
Mark 16:6 “Don’t be alarmed,” he said. “You are looking for Jesus the Nazarene, who was crucified. He has risen! He is not here. See the place where they laid him. 7 But go, tell his disciples and Peter, ‘He is going ahead of you into Galilee. There you will see him, just as he told you.’”
Joe: Get this thorough your head, the readings are early form, they come from a much eelier time.
Okay, I have to admit not not having a background in history, so I am not familiar with the "Get this thorough your head" argument. Can you explain why I should find it convincing?
What timeframe are you thinking about here? What is your evidence?
Joe: Thomas contains Q sayings.
I cannot comment, but I do not think it matters either way.
Joe: That is just anti intellectual Bible hatred. you just assume it without facts
No, Joe. Assuming it is true because it is in the Bible is faith. Noting that there is uncertainty is history.
Pix
There are other ways to look at this, and I think a lot of the differences in the reports of the Resurrection are explainable in terms of there being different eyewitnesses. Even today, if you have more than one eyewitness of an event, their stories are not going to mesh exactly. There will be differences based on where they were standing, what they were focused on, etc. To me the fact that some of the women saw two angels at the tomb, and some only saw one, makes it more believable, not less. It would depend on where they were standing in the group, and if they were able to get all the way inside the tomb or were just catching glimpses from the doorway. If the stories were mere fabrications, wouldn't the story tellers have tried harder to mesh their stories? Instead, it seems to me that they have recorded what the different women said, discrepancies and all. Another point is that if the stories were made up, they wouldn't have said that it was women that Jesus appeared to first-- in first-century Judea this would be an embarrassing fact, one that makes the story less likely to be believed. The testimony of women was not considered reliable. And yet the texts put it in. This makes it more likely that it actually happened that way.
In Mark the angel tells the women to go and tell the disciples and Peter, but it also says that these women didn't tell anyone because they were afraid. Then there are other stories in other gospels of women who DID tell the disciples, but the disciples refused to believe them. Were these the same women? Not necessarily; there could easily have been more than one group. Jesus had a good many women that traveled with him. But if the first group ended up not telling the disciples, and then the second group did tell but wasn't believed, it could have caused Jesus to change his plans and appear to the disciples in Jerusalem because they had failed to believe the message and had failed to go into Galilee.
In any case, I find the reading that Mark "clearly" didn't know about the Jerusalem appearances to be just one more supposedly "clear" reading that is really more about the reader's viewpoint than about the text being incapable of more than one interpretation.
Excellent points Kristen. I think he appeared to some here and some there so what? He didn't say I will only appear to people on Galilee.
Anonymous said...
Joe: I referred to the authors as Matt and John it was obvious I meant the guys who wrote Matt and Jon.
Oh come on! How stupid do you think I am? You said very clearly it was Matt and John, people who knew Jesus.
The author of John was the elder John who is mentioned by Papias. He was mentored as one who knew Jesus. Matthew was the work of a community and they contained eye witness. Neither are their apostle namesakes but they were eye witnesses.
"we have writtigs of people who knew him. Of the Gospels which chronical his life Matt and John knew him."
The authors of Matt and John. We went over this years ago on CADRE bog don't you remember that?
You specifically stated the authors of Matthew and John knew Jesus! And yet you later admitted you do not believe that is true.
No I did not. I remember saying if they didn't not that they did not.
Joe: We do have writings of people who knew Jesus. I think Bauckham proved his point John was by elder John. The author of the Johannine epistles wrote the Gospel, and that author calls himself "the elder." Read Jesus an the eye witnesses.
Why should we think John the Elder knew Jesus?
Papias says he did.
Joe: I also think 1 Peter was by Peter.
Most scholars think otherwise.
https://www.earlychristianwritings.com/1peter.html
I think for myself
Joe: Those books contain anthric words 0f Jesus and arcuate events and they are passed down from the teaching of eye witnesses. Elder John knew Jesus as Papias says he did,
But you said the authors of Matthew and John knew Jesus.
Man I haven no idea why you think this is a contradiction how many times Must i say elder John knew Jesus? just get it through your head. Matthew is by a community of witnesses.
"we have writtigs of people who knew him. Of the Gospels which chronical his life Matt and John knew him."
I also told you it should read "Matthew" and "John." I will not take the trouble in the future, so just get it through your head Matt and John means the people who wrote the docs whoever I think they were not thee namesakes.
Joe: I think Gospel of Thomas is just as old. I contains Q sayings which means Q is that old.
But again it is just a collection of sayings, so no help with any miracles, empty tomb, etc.
Mao's little red book is just a collection of sayings. Thomas is much more nuanced than that. Since it contains Q it's a lot more.
Pix: The earliest full account that we still have is Mark, and Mark clearly believed the risen Jesus was first seen in Galilee, contradicting all the later gospels.
That is unimportant, You have always treated Mark like the author made up Jesus.
Joe: that is bull shit, Mark was the first canonical gospel written, he is by no means the first account of the Gospel.
I said "The earliest full account that we still have". Thomas may be older, it is not an account, it is a collection of sayings. Certainly there were earlier accounts that we no longer have. But Mark is the oldest full account that we have.
the Pre Mark redaction was a full account, we don't have it as such but it does not make Mark so authoritative.
Joe: I straitened that out before you refuse to think about it,
The text explicitly says Jesus was going on ahead to Galilee. It is very clear Mark was not aware of any sightings in Jerusalem before Galilee.
It does not say he never appeared to anyone before that. He met them in Galilee but he appeared to some before that, No big deal.
Mark 16:6 “Don’t be alarmed,” he said. “You are looking for Jesus the Nazarene, who was crucified. He has risen! He is not here. See the place where they laid him. 7 But go, tell his disciples and Peter, ‘He is going ahead of you into Galilee. There you will see him, just as he told you.’”
the redactor sticks that in an angel's mouth that doesn't mean an angel said that at that time. The redactor knows they met in Galilee so he figured why not say tis? It does not say "he will never appear anywhere else."
Joe: Get this thorough your head, the readings are early form, they come from a much eelier time. [Diatessaron]
Okay, I have to admit not not having a background in history, so I am not familiar with the "Get this thorough your head" argument. Can you explain why I should find it convincing?
You are missing the concept of earlier readings, so get it through your head means you need to make a conceptual adjustment,
What timeframe are you thinking about here? What is your evidence?
Koester and Dankir those 8 guys Koester names argued it was pre Mark redaction,
Joe: Thomas contains Q sayings.
I cannot comment, but I do not think it matters either way.
It means Matthews material is partly pre Mark
Joe: That is just anti intellectual Bible hatred. you just assume it without facts
No, Joe. Assuming it is true because it is in the Bible is faith. Noting that there is uncertainty is history.
Atheist definition of faith is BS. faith does not mean no data it does not mean no understanding
Pix
Kristen: There are other ways to look at this, and I think a lot of the differences in the reports of the Resurrection are explainable in terms of there being different eyewitnesses.
They were not different witnesses. The authors of Matthew and Luke copied Mark because that was their best source of what happened, and they added whatever rumours were circulating in the community.
Kristen: Even today, if you have more than one eyewitness of an event, their stories are not going to mesh exactly. There will be differences based on where they were standing, what they were focused on, etc. To me the fact that some of the women saw two angels at the tomb, and some only saw one, makes it more believable, not less.
The issue with the women at the empty tomb is what they did afterwards. Mark says they told no one, Matthew says they immediately told the disciples. How can different points of view reconcile that?
Kristen: The testimony of women was not considered reliable. And yet the texts put it in. This makes it more likely that it actually happened that way.
Mark put it in to support his claims of an empty tomb.
The empty tomb was made up - possibly before Mark, but after Paul was writing. Anyone who had been in Jerusalem around AD 30 would know there was no mention of an empty tomb back then. Mark's solution was to invent the women finding it, but not telling anyone at the time.
By the time Matthew was written, anyone who was alive in AD 30 would be dead, and unable to object to the claims of people seeing Jesus there.
Kristen: In Mark the angel tells the women to go and tell the disciples and Peter, but it also says that these women didn't tell anyone because they were afraid. Then there are other stories in other gospels of women who DID tell the disciples, but the disciples refused to believe them. Were these the same women? Not necessarily; there could easily have been more than one group.
Or the women were made up; it never happened; there was no empty tomb. The disciples returned to their old lives in Galilee, and saw (what they believed to be) the risen Jesus weeks later.
Mark was very familiar with the account, having been Peter's scribe, and of course Peter was all too keen to tell people all about it. So when he comes to write the gospel, he writes about Jesus being seen in Galilee.
Kristen: Jesus had a good many women that traveled with him. But if the first group ended up not telling the disciples, and then the second group did tell but wasn't believed, it could have caused Jesus to change his plans and appear to the disciples in Jerusalem because they had failed to believe the message and had failed to go into Galilee.
Who do you think were in these two groups? Mark tells us Mary Magdalene, Mary the mother of James, and Salome were in the group that did not tell anyone. Matthew tells us Mary Magdalene and the other Mary were in the group that did. Are you saying the two Mary's were so afraid that they never told anyone, and then they went back, had another look, got told by the angel a second time, and this time went to tell the disciples?
Kristen: In any case, I find the reading that Mark "clearly" didn't know about the Jerusalem appearances to be just one more supposedly "clear" reading that is really more about the reader's viewpoint than about the text being incapable of more than one interpretation.
I cannot see why Mark would have written this, if he thought the disciples were told Jesus was alive, then checked out the tomb and saw Jesus himself in Jerusalem that day:
6 “Don’t be alarmed,” he said. “You are looking for Jesus the Nazarene, who was crucified. He has risen! He is not here. See the place where they laid him. 7 But go, tell his disciples and Peter, ‘He is going ahead of you into Galilee. There you will see him, just as he told you.’”
8 Trembling and bewildered, the women went out and fled from the tomb. They said nothing to anyone, because they were afraid.
Pix
Joe: The author of John was the elder John who is mentioned by Papias. He was mentored as one who knew Jesus. Matthew was the work of a community and they contained eye witness. Neither are their apostle namesakes but they were eye witnesses.
So why did you not say that, rather than pretend they gospels were written by the disciples Matthew and John?
Joe: I think for myself
Right, and that is based on faith, not history. If the scholars say 1 Peter was not written by Peter, but you nevertheless want to believe it was, then you will believe it was.
Joe: Mao's little red book is just a collection of sayings. Thomas is much more nuanced than that. Since it contains Q it's a lot more.
So quote a bit of Thomas that supports the resurrection, even in the most vaguest sense.
Joe: That is unimportant, You have always treated Mark like the author made up Jesus.
I absolutely do not believe Mark made Jesus up; I have no idea where you get thatfrom. I am sure he believed Jesus was real, was crucified and was resurrected. Mark may have made up the empty tomb, but I tend towards thinking it was invented earlier. He likely did invent the women discovering the empty tomb. He almost certainly believed Jesus was adopted as God's son. But he believed Jesus was real.
Joe: the Pre Mark redaction was a full account, we don't have it as such but it does not make Mark so authoritative.
As you say, "we don't have it" so clearly it is not "The earliest full account that we still have"!
Joe: It does not say he never appeared to anyone before that. He met them in Galilee but he appeared to some before that, No big deal.
It tells us Mark was not aware of any appearances before Jesus was seen in Galilee. I think the only way that can be explained is by saying all those Jerusalem appearances were made up.
Joe: the redactor sticks that in an angel's mouth that doesn't mean an angel said that at that time. The redactor knows they met in Galilee so he figured why not say tis? It does not say "he will never appear anywhere else."
The redactor? Are you saying the text was later modified? What is your basis for that?
I agree the author/redactor sticks it in the angels mouth. I feel confident no angel ever said it. But what it tells us is that the author/redactor believed that Galilee was where the risen Jesus was first seen.
Joe: Koester and Dankir those 8 guys Koester names argued it was pre Mark redaction,
What is your point? I fully agree there was a pre-Markan passion narrative that Mark drew on. That text clearly had no indication of Jesus being seen in Jerusalem, given what Mark recorded.
Joe: It means Matthews material is partly pre Mark
Sure, but the bits from Q are sayings, not history. So how does that help you?
Pix
Joe: It does not say he never appeared to anyone before that. He met them in Galilee but he appeared to some before that, No big deal.
It tells us Mark was not aware of any appearances before Jesus was seen in Galilee. I think the only way that can be explained is by saying all those Jerusalem appearances were made up.
That makes no difference because other sightings are part of PMR. Mark did know but it wasn't important because Mark is not imposing your agenda,. He is nit imposing a dichotomy.
Joe: the redactor sticks that in an angel's mouth that doesn't mean an angel said that at that time. The redactor knows they met in Galilee so he figured why not say tis? It does not say "he will never appear anywhere else."
The redactor? Are you saying the text was later modified? What is your basis for that?
I agree the author/redactor sticks it in the angels mouth. I feel confident no angel ever said it. But what it tells us is that the author/redactor believed that Galilee was where the risen Jesus was first seen.
No it's not, It just means he didn't think those sightings were important enough. Probably because the witnesses he had to go by were not with MM when she saw Jesus. Nor were they with Peter and John when they saw theirs.
Joe: Koester and Dankir those 8 guys Koester names argued it was pre Mark redaction,
What is your point? I fully agree there was a pre-Markan passion narrative that Mark drew on. That text clearly had no indication of Jesus being seen in Jerusalem, given what Mark recorded.
Yes it did. You haven't read Koester,It's not limited to Jesus on the cross. It's use by all five Gospels; So the accounts in Matthew and John also reflect the PMR> Koester says it includes the empty tomb. Koester differs from Crossen in that Koester thinks the epiphanies are part of the PRN and Crossen says they are from different sources.
Joe: It means Matthews material is partly pre Mark
Sure, but the bits from Q are sayings, not history. So how does that help you?
PMR is more than must Q.
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/330521644_The_Ending_of_the_Pre-Markan_Passion_Narrative
women at tomb part of PMR so Mark did not invent them
Joe: Because I've said it so many times before. You should remember something from our years of arguing on CADRE blog.
But the point here is that you set out to create a false impression in your original post - you were deliberately misleading people by making it seem like the gospels were authored by the disciples Matthew and John, when we both know you do not believe that is the case. And that just makes you look dishonest and desperate.
Bearing in mind that on one level this is about whether this is historical methodology, you are showing that you are more interested in apologetics than history here.
Joe: Scholarship is not regurgitating received options, that is all you do. You learn the party line and spit it back you think that is scholarship. This is not chemistry no formulas.
Are you really claiming what you are doing here is scholarship? Okay, I will bite. Give us the scholarly reasoning and evidence that leads you to conclude with such certainty that 1 Peter was written by the disciple.
Joe: There actually is a passage. I don't have time to look for it. But mistake you are making is in thinking i treat Thomas like holy scripture. I did not say it is inspired I said it has early readings that were accepted by orthodox, it also has latter gnostic propaganda,
I think you are treating Thomas as an account of Jesus life and death, when it is a collection of saying. Nothing you say here persuades me otherwise. Anyone interested in verifying this can find the gospel here:
https://www.marquette.edu/maqom/Gospel%20of%20Thomas%20Lambdin.pdf
Joe: That Mark made up the women is Crossen's view. It is respected among many leading scholars. I have to treat that view with some respect owing to its possibility, I am sure it's the party line but I doubt it. I think it does come form the doubt all pro religion. they are in every version.
They are in every version because every version is based on what Mark wrote.
Joe: Mark was not an adoptionist, that is absurd.
Why? That is certainly the earliest view of Jesus, an extension of the Jewish belief of a messiah who would be appointed by God, following the belief that all the earlier messiahs - their kings - were adopted as the son of God. What is there in Mark to suggest he believed otherwise?
Why was Jesus baptised if he was God incarnate? Matthew attempts to explain that away, but Mark does not. Why not? To Mark, Jesus was just a man until he was baptised, and appointed messiah by God.
Why does Mark say the good news about Jesus started with John? Jesus had been alive thirty years by then! Matthew and Luke say the good news started when Jesus was conceived. To their authors, Jesus was always divine. But not Mark. Jesus was just an ordinary man - if a righteous man - until appointed by God.
Joe: You use that as license to read-in all your party lines and to impose your own assertions of doubt. Being the oldest full account is nothing, the fact that we have so many bits of the PMR means we are not stick with Mark.
The fact is that Mark is the oldest full account that we have. There are hints and snippets in other places. I think John 21 and the Gospel of Peter together suggest the risen Jesus was first seen by Peter on a boat on the Sea of Galilee, but that is definitely speculative. However, where accounts differ, I will generally go with the earlier one.
It is likely people were still alive who could remember that first Easter when Mark was written, which will have, to some degree, kept the rumours in check. When the later gospels were written, that control has been lost.
Pix
Joe: That makes no difference because other sightings are part of PMR. Mark did know but it wasn't important because Mark is not imposing your agenda,. He is nit imposing a dichotomy.
So your position is that Mark was fully aware that Jesus was seen in Jerusalem, on the road to Emmaus, in the sealed room on a few occasions and all the other sightings, before he was seen in Galilee, but he chose to nevertheless say that Jesus had gone on ahead to Galilee?
What is his motivation here?
To me, the first sighting of the risen Jesus was the most important event in Christianity. And yet you seem to think Mark just skipped over it. That actually all those appearances in Jerusalem when Jesus ate fish and got carefully inspected by Thomas, were not important.
Joe: No it's not, It just means he didn't think those sightings were important enough. Probably because the witnesses he had to go by were not with MM when she saw Jesus. Nor were they with Peter and John when they saw theirs.
But Mark was supposedly Peter's scribe! How can you tell me Mark did not think Peter's testimony was important?
Joe: Yes it did. You haven't read Koester,It's not limited to Jesus on the cross. It's use by all five Gospels; So the accounts in Matthew and John also reflect the PMR> Koester says it includes the empty tomb. Koester differs from Crossen in that Koester thinks the epiphanies are part of the PRN and Crossen says they are from different sources.
Actually I have read Koester, and I do not believe he says that. I will see if I can check it later.
The fact that the gospels diverge so much after the empty tomb pretty much proves there was nothing in the PMPN after that point, and it is also uncertain if the PMPN had the empty tomb. One thing Koester does say is that the PMPN was not a single document; it was in a state of flux, and likely changed over time. The empty tomb may not have been in it at all, or could be a later addition to it.
The fact that Paul omits it from the creed in 1 Cor 15 tells us Paul was not aware of it.
Joe: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/330521644_The_Ending_of_the_Pre-Markan_Passion_Narrative
women at tomb part of PMR so Mark did not invent them
Thanks for that. But you do realise that is not proof? That is one guy's argument, and he is clearly arguing against a common belief among scholars that Mark made up the women.
And if we take it as true, then I would say some unknown author of the PMPN made up the women. It does not really matter to me.
Also worth noting that this article refutes your claim that the sightings of the risen Jesus were in the PMPN.
Pix
Anonymous said...
Joe: That makes no difference because other sightings are part of PMR. Mark did know but it wasn't important because Mark is not imposing your agenda,. He is nit imposing a dichotomy.
So your position is that Mark was fully aware that Jesus was seen in Jerusalem, on the road to Emmaus, in the sealed room on a few occasions and all the other sightings, before he was seen in Galilee, but he chose to nevertheless say that Jesus had gone on ahead to Galilee?
We can't know of what Mark was aware. We do know it makes no difference. He was not denying the Jerusalem sightings. He was not imposing the dichotomy you envision.
What is his motivation here?
To Record the highlights
To me, the first sighting of the risen Jesus was the most important event in Christianity. And yet you seem to think Mark just skipped over it. That actually all those appearances in Jerusalem when Jesus ate fish and got carefully inspected by Thomas, were not important.
You assume Mark is complete I do not. I think there is a lost ending. In that ending may mention the Jerusalem sightings. We can't assume, however, that he is going to see the things as important that we do.
Joe: No it's not, It just means he didn't think those sightings were important enough. Probably because the witnesses he had to go by were not with MM when she saw Jesus. Nor were they with Peter and John when they saw theirs.
But Mark was supposedly Peter's scribe! How can you tell me Mark did not think Peter's testimony was important?
You still can't second guess what its supposed to say. The other gospels reflect PMR.
Joe: Yes it did. You haven't read Koester,It's not limited to Jesus on the cross. It's use by all five Gospels; So the accounts in Matthew and John also reflect the PMR> Koester says it includes the empty tomb. Koester differs from Crossen in that Koester thinks the epiphanies are part of the PRN and Crossen says they are from different sources.
Actually I have read Koester, and I do not believe he says that. I will see if I can check it later.
It says it I've quoted it several times.
The fact that the gospels diverge so much after the empty tomb pretty much proves there was nothing in the PMPN after that point,
Can't see how that follows. It looks to me like it could be the opposite. That is just because different groups got different eye witnesses to the events. Suppose the Mark group (the group that produced Mark) got Salome and a couple of other women at the tomb, John group got Mary Magdelon, they are going to gave differing accounts of the same event. Mary obviously leaves before they entered the tomb she did not see the angel and went to get Peter. Her account is going to look different from that of the others.
and it is also uncertain if the PMPN had the empty tomb. One thing Koester does say is that the PMPN was not a single document; it was in a state of flux, and likely changed over time. The empty tomb may not have been in it at all, or could be a later addition to it.
He clearly says it included the empty tomb. I've quoted ut many times I used to know the page number. I am certain he says it.
The fact that Paul omits it from the creed in 1 Cor 15 tells us Paul was not aware of it.
No it doesn't. Just more of your second guessing. Since Paul wasn't there neither did he have the Gospels he was never interdicted to the dictum because it was not an issue in the early church,
Joe: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/330521644_The_Ending_of_the_Pre-Markan_Passion_Narrative
women at tomb part of PMR so Mark did not invent them
Thanks for that. But you do realise that is not proof? That is one guy's argument, and he is clearly arguing against a common belief among scholars that Mark made up the women.
That is not a common belief among scholars. Tillich laughed at it and said Jesus mythers were idiots for saying that. It's not reflected by Koester. It's common among Crossen fans.
And if we take it as true, then I would say some unknown author of the PMPN made up the women. It does not really matter to me.
why take it as true? It's contradicted by all for Gospels and GPete.
Also worth noting that this article refutes your claim that the sightings of the risen Jesus were in the PMPN.
He's an arch liberal but he clearly says his own exegesis placeless both women at the tomb they did exist they were not made up that's the important thing. moreover, I don't think he is denying that there were women who saw the empty tomb that this was noised about before Mark. He's just supporting Crossen's idea that the epiphanies were from other sources.Koester disagreed with him and said all those sightings are from on
e PMR source.
Joe: We can't know of what Mark was aware.
We cannot KNOW anything of what happened back then; we need to look at what is likely, and think about how likely it is.
Joe: We do know it makes no difference. He was not denying the Jerusalem sightings. He was not imposing the dichotomy you envision.
It makes a huge difference. If he did not know about the Jerusalem sightings the only reasonable explanation I can think of is that they had yet to be made up.
Joe: To Record the highlights
And the first sighting of the risen Jesus was not a highlight?
How long do you think it was between that first Easter and Jesus being seen in Galilee, bearing in mind it takes a good three days to get there? Do you think he was seen in Galilee before or after he was seen by Thomas?
I ask because I think you will struggle to fit a journey to Galilee and back in that time interval, which means that the disciples were told to go to Galilee, and yet still chose to hang around for at least a week before doing so.
If the sighting in Galilee is that important, why does Luke omit it altogether?
Joe: You assume Mark is complete I do not. I think there is a lost ending. In that ending may mention the Jerusalem sightings. We can't assume, however, that he is going to see the things as important that we do.
I accept there could be a lost ending, though I find it unlikely. But suppose there is, it is pretty clear it would describe the sightings in Galilee, not Jerusalem, given in chapter 14 as well as 16 Mark states that is where Jesus would be.
Joe: You still can't second guess what its supposed to say. The other gospels reflect PMR.
Why not? We can read what he wrote. He wrote that Jesus had gone on ahead to Galilee.
Either we use that to try to work out what it was he believed, or we try to impose our religious beliefs on the text. One of these is history, the other is apologetics. Can you tell which is which?
Joe: It says it I've quoted it several times.
You quote the paragraph that starts "Dominic Crossan has gone further. Utilizing Denker's observations..."
You naturally omit the next three paragraphs, which start "There are three major problems regards this hypothesis. ..." and make it clear the Koester thinks the hypothesis is WRONG.
Joe: Can't see how that follows.
Koester is with me on this. From page 220::
However, except for the story of the discovery of the empty tomb, the different stories of the appearances of Jesus after his resurrection in various gospels cannot derive from a single source. The are independent of one another,. Each of the authors of the extant gospels and of their secondary endings drew the epiphany stories from their own particular tradition, not from a common source.
Joe: It looks to me like it could be the opposite. That is just because different groups got different eye witnesses to the events. Suppose the Mark group (the group that produced Mark) got Salome and a couple of other women at the tomb, John group got Mary Magdelon, they are going to gave differing accounts of the same event. Mary obviously leaves before they entered the tomb she did not see the angel and went to get Peter. Her account is going to look different from that of the others.
Mark says it was Salome and the two Marys, not two other women. Do you think Mark got it wrong? Both Mark and Matthew have the angel appear when Mary was present. Where do you get this idea that she left before he arrived?
Joe: No it doesn't. Just more of your second guessing. Since Paul wasn't there neither did he have the Gospels he was never interdicted to the dictum because it was not an issue in the early church,
Paul was reciting a creed. This is what all Christians believed in AD 50 - in fact many think the creed is much earlier. The lack of an empty tomb in the creed is best explained by the simple fact that the empty tomb had yet to be made up.
Pix
Joe: That is not a common belief among scholars. Tillich laughed at it and said Jesus mythers were idiots for saying that. It's not reflected by Koester. It's common among Crossen fans.
Koester's view can be found on p224:
One can assume the only historical information about Jesus' suffering, crucifixion, and death was that he was condemned to death by Pilate and crucified. The details and individual scenes of the narrative do not rest on historical memory, but were developed on the basis of allegorical interpretation of scripture.
That is, the disciples made it all up - besides the crucifixion at Pilate's order - based on OT verses.
Joe: why take it as true? It's contradicted by all for Gospels and GPete.
All of which are based on the same source.
Joe: He's an arch liberal but he clearly says his own exegesis placeless both women at the tomb they did exist they were not made up that's the important thing. moreover, I don't think he is denying that there were women who saw the empty tomb that this was noised about before Mark. He's just supporting Crossen's idea that the epiphanies were from other sources.Koester disagreed with him and said all those sightings are from on e PMR source.
No true. Koester states "that he was condemned to death by Pilate and crucified" are the only historical bits in there!
Pix
Mark says it was Salome and the two Marys, not two other women. Do you think Mark got it wrong? Both Mark and Matthew have the angel appear when Mary was present. Where do you get this idea that she left before he arrived?
I think the accounts differ not because each made up his own but because each had access to a different sets of witnesses. They all knew MM was there. Mark may have known Salome and Matthew did not.
When John includes only Mary Magdalen at the tomb it is not because he made it up. It reflects the author's perspective he only saw Mary. Therefore she must have departed early. Mary runs into them and says "the tomb is empty and we don't know where they laid him." So in John's account she starts with others,("we don't know...") In seeing the stone rolled away she assumed the body was moved and went to get Peter. She was with the other women and left to get Peter before enterng the tomb.
I know Paul quotes an early tradition that has James as the first witness. That does prove it was so. The early crutch had a tradition naming James as the first witness because being Jews they thought women were not fit witnesses. Mark was radical to bring them into it. The women Probably were historical because why do that if you are just making it up? It would hurt his account. But if he knew the women, or some of them. and could not ignore them because he knew the truth
Mark says it was Salome and the two Marys, not two other women. Do you think Mark got it wrong? Both Mark and Matthew have the angel appear when Mary was present. Where do you get this idea that she left before he arrived?
There were several women. None of the men who wrote the accounts were sure who all was there so they mention those the knew.
Anonymous said...
Joe: That is not a common belief among scholars. Tillich laughed at it and said Jesus mythers were idiots for saying that. It's not reflected by Koester. It's common among Crossen fans.
Koester's view can be found on p224:
One can assume the only historical information about Jesus' suffering, crucifixion, and death was that he was condemned to death by Pilate and crucified. The details and individual scenes of the narrative do not rest on historical memory, but were developed on the basis of allegorical interpretation of scripture.
That does not mean the empty didn't happen. He's talking historiography. You ever presented a paper at a conference? A history paper? I have done history papers and philosphy and theology, the latter two are fun history papers forget it. The historians are the worst! They are all sour and crabby and hyper critical. You would be a special kind of idiot to try and defend the resurrections as an academic Paper at a conference.
That is, the disciples made it all up - besides the crucifixion at Pilate's order - based on OT verses.
That's not proof they made it up. you are not will to allow for the nature of the society and the circumstances of writing, you are imposing a modern view point on them and one slanted to support your unbelief.
Joe: why take it as true? It's contradicted by all for Gospels and GPete.
All of which are based on the same source.
Joe: He's an arch liberal but he clearly says his own exegesis placeless both women at the tomb they did exist they were not made up that's the important thing. moreover, I don't think he is denying that there were women who saw the empty tomb that this was noised about before Mark. He's just supporting Crossen's idea that the epiphanies were from other sources.Koester disagreed with him and said all those sightings are from on e PMR source.
No true. Koester states "that he was condemned to death by Pilate and crucified" are the only historical bits in there!
Joe: That does not rue it miracles because we can know miracles today,
I am not talking about miracles, I am talking about ancient history. We cannot KNOW any of this because we have so little evidence from back then.
Joe: But you don't know/ you are asserting you know because you want to think so. That's childish,
Right, I do not know. I just said that. You do not know either; you just have faith, and your faith gives the illusion of certainty.
Joe: You can't read his mind. stop trying to assert that it confirms your pet theory. It does not.
No we cannot read minds. But we can read what he wrote. What he wrote indicates he was not aware of any appearances of he risen Jesus in Jerusalem.
The most likely reason for his writing that is that that is what he thought. And the most likely reason that is the Jerusalem appearances had not been invented yet.
Joe: stop thinking of these guys as writing tv movie of the week. Each one captures his own concept of the events.
So give a plausible explanation of why Mark choose to omit Jesus appearing to Peter, Jesus appearing to two disciples on the road to Emmaus, Jesus appearing in the locked room and Jesus appearing in that locked room a week later, and instead said Jesus had gone on ahead to Galilee.
Suggest what Mark might have believed that is consistent with your view of what happened.
Joe: You are imposing your own idea of what is important and why.
And you are failing to say WHY I am wrong. Why did Mark consider Jesus appearing to Peter, Jesus appearing on the road to Emmaus, Jesus appearing in the locked room and Jesus appearing in that locked room a week later to be not worth a mention even in passing?
Joe: Since the shade of Mark is guiding your hand I see no reason to go on
Right, anything to avoid confronting reality.
Pix
Joe: I think the accounts differ not because each made up his own but because each had access to a different sets of witnesses. They all knew MM was there. Mark may have known Salome and Matthew did not.
But earlier you said "Suppose the Mark group (the group that produced Mark) got Salome and a couple of other women at the tomb, John group got Mary Magdelon, they are going to gave differing accounts of the same event." Do you think the Marys were in Mark's group or not?
Joe: When John includes only Mary Magdalen at the tomb it is not because he made it up. It reflects the author's perspective he only saw Mary. Therefore she must have departed early. Mary runs into them and says "the tomb is empty and we don't know where they laid him." So in John's account she starts with others,("we don't know...") In seeing the stone rolled away she assumed the body was moved and went to get Peter. She was with the other women and left to get Peter before enterng the tomb.
I am not too bothered with different women listed; maybe the author just did not like a particular woman. What I find implausible is your claim that two groups of women visited the tomb, which is not suggested in any account.
Joe: I know Paul quotes an early tradition that has James as the first witness. That does prove it was so. The early crutch had a tradition naming James as the first witness because being Jews they thought women were not fit witnesses. Mark was radical to bring them into it. The women Probably were historical because why do that if you are just making it up? It would hurt his account. But if he knew the women, or some of them. and could not ignore them because he knew the truth
First, the creed in Paul says Peter say Jesus first, not James.
Secondly, Mark does not say the women saw Jesus. There is no contradiction between Paul and Mark - though they do not really overlap timewise, so not much scope for it.
Thirdly, Mark uses women because that explains why no one was talking about the empty tomb back in AD 33. The reality is that no one was talking about it back then because it had yet to be invented. Mark, however, is claiming it is because the people who found it were too terrified to tell anyone.
Joe: That does not mean the empty didn't happen.
It means Koester believes it did not happen.
Joe: That's not proof they made it up. you are not will to allow for the nature of the society and the circumstances of writing, you are imposing a modern view point on them and one slanted to support your unbelief.
I am not claiming proof. As I said at the start, we cannot KNOW any of this.
However, it does prove that Koester's position is that they made it all up - besides the crucifixion at Pilate's order - based on OT verses.
Pix
Pix, I've been unable to comment for a couple of days, but I would like to answer a few things:
Pix: They were not different witnesses. The authors of Matthew and Luke copied Mark because that was their best source of what happened, and they added whatever rumours were circulating in the community.
You assert this as if you were there and saw it all for yourself. There's plenty of internal evidence that the various texts, including the PMR and Q, include eyewitness testimony of a number of people. Luke, for instance, includes details from Jesus's mother that other accounts leave out. Each of the four gospels has a particular theme or focus, and leaves out whatever is not important to that theme.
The issue with the women at the empty tomb is what they did afterwards. Mark says they told no one, Matthew says they immediately told the disciples. How can different points of view reconcile that?
From the way I understand it, a more literal translation of the last portion of the last sentence of Mark 16:8 is something like: "to none nothing they spoke, they were afraid for...." Also that Mark has a pattern of writing that often goes: negative statement; exception. See Mark 5:37, 9:8, 9:9. I think it likely that a portion of Mark is lost, including the phrase "except the disciples," that would logically end a sentence fragment that appears to exist.
Pix: Mark put it in to support his claims of an empty tomb. The empty tomb was made up - possibly before Mark, but after Paul was writing. Anyone who had been in Jerusalem around AD 30 would know there was no mention of an empty tomb back then. Mark's solution was to invent the women finding it, but not telling anyone at the time.
Such an invention would actually have harmed the believability of the story. At the time Mark was written, the testimony of women was considered unreliable.
Pix: Or the women were made up; it never happened; there was no empty tomb. The disciples returned to their old lives in Galilee, and saw (what they believed to be) the risen Jesus weeks later.
In that case why include it at all? "We know women are unreliable witnesses, but we're going to stick this bit in anyway, even though it never actually happened and there were no [unreliable] women that actually said this." Silliness.
Pix: Mark was very familiar with the account, having been Peter's scribe, and of course Peter was all too keen to tell people all about it. So when he comes to write the gospel, he writes about Jesus being seen in Galilee.
But he doesn't. He writes that the angel told the women that Jesus would be seen in Galilee (which is recorded as happening in another account, not Mark's). Your argument also seems to support the idea that part of the end of Mark got lost.
Pix: Who do you think were in these two groups? Mark tells us Mary Magdalene, Mary the mother of James, and Salome were in the group that did not tell anyone. Matthew tells us Mary Magdalene and the other Mary were in the group that did. Are you saying the two Mary's were so afraid that they never told anyone, and then they went back, had another look, got told by the angel a second time, and this time went to tell the disciples?
Obviously not. But when I said "two groups," I didn't mean two separate sets of women who went independently to the tomb. Just that there were more women than just the three mentioned, and some of them may have said nothing for a while, while Mary Magdelene and others told the male disciples. Or Mark may have written "except the disciples," and that part got lost.
Kristen: You assert this as if you were there and saw it all for yourself.
I thought that was what we were doing in this discussion...
Kristen: There's plenty of internal evidence that the various texts, including the PMR and Q, include eyewitness testimony of a number of people. Luke, for instance, includes details from Jesus's mother that other accounts leave out.
The PMR is that one witness. Q is believed to be a collection of saying, not an account of what happened.
There are certainly bits that come from other sources, but why suppose they were eye witnesses? Mary would be over 100 when Luke was written; it is pretty certain Luke did not get the nativity directly from her.
Kristen: Each of the four gospels has a particular theme or focus, and leaves out whatever is not important to that theme.
Can you point me to where Christian scholars have determined the focus of each gospel, and then explained each inclusion and omission on that basis? I do not think it has ever been done, and I think that is because it cannot be done. Apologists need to ascribe to an author different foci for different parts of the narrative to fit what we see.
Kristen: From the way I understand it, a more literal translation of the last portion of the last sentence of Mark 16:8 is something like: "to none nothing they spoke, they were afraid for...." Also that Mark has a pattern of writing that often goes: negative statement; exception. See Mark 5:37, 9:8, 9:9. I think it likely that a portion of Mark is lost, including the phrase "except the disciples," that would logically end a sentence fragment that appears to exist.
I am not sure that works, as the text says "for they were afraid" after it says "they told no one". The bit you want to add would need to be inserted before "for they were afraid".
The Greek is here, by the way.
https://biblehub.com/text/mark/16-8.htm
Kristen: Such an invention would actually have harmed the believability of the story. At the time Mark was written, the testimony of women was considered unreliable.
Apologists cite this as evidence all the time. If the empty tomb was made up, then there were no reliable witnesses available! Mark (or whoever made it up) was therefore obliged to use unreliable witnesses, i.e., women - and at that women who were likely dead by now; Jesus mother would be about 90 at that time.
Kristen: In that case why include it at all? "We know women are unreliable witnesses, but we're going to stick this bit in anyway, even though it never actually happened and there were no [unreliable] women that actually said this." Silliness.
Because he needs someone to see the empty tomb. His alternative was to declare the tomb was empty, but have no one there to see that it was so.
Kristen: But he doesn't. He writes that the angel told the women that Jesus would be seen in Galilee (which is recorded as happening in another account, not Mark's). Your argument also seems to support the idea that part of the end of Mark got lost.
Bad wording on my part. I should have said "So when he comes to write the gospel, he writes according to his understanding that Jesus was seen in Galilee."
Kristen: Obviously not. But when I said "two groups," I didn't mean two separate sets of women who went independently to the tomb. Just that there were more women than just the three mentioned, and some of them may have said nothing for a while, while Mary Magdelene and others told the male disciples. Or Mark may have written "except the disciples," and that part got lost.
But still none of the accounts suggest two trips to the tomb by groups of women.
Pix
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