Robert said
Jarek said
… There is a slight quantitative difference between me and, for example, Ludemann. He says 95% is a creation. I say 100%. There is, however, a huge methodological difference between us. …
Have you abandoned your previous position from only a few months ago that there was indeed an historical core to the Jesus story?
An unknown man, coming from out of nowhere, was condemned by unknown rulers, then was crucified and resurrected. He was called Jesus and was given the nickname / title Christ. He was sent by God and sacrificed himself for all of us. Starting point for all writers. Paul and Thomas remain ignorant of Jesus’ life. For the first, the risen Jesus appeared to him personally. For Thomas, the unknown Jesus taught and logia were left after him. For both writers, Jesus was a human being, but nothing specific. And the first evangelist located him in time and space and using tales of rebels, apocalyptic prophets, magicians. Some stories were heard others modeled on those read in the writings of Josephus. Ludemann finds 5% of the true material in the Gospels.
Jarek said
Porphyry said
Jarek said
My suggestions simplify many problems. If Josephus was the source for the evangelists, TF originality issues are irrelevant.
You think Josephus was a source for all four gospels, including Mark?
Venn Diagram for Synoptic Gospels can be drawn for any entertainment content. All it says is that the three versions were created in parallel and that the authors knew each other perfectly for most of the process.
You think the synoptics all knew each other? So Mark, for example, wrote at the same time as Luke and was acquainted with his theology?
What’s more – they created these gospels in such a way that customers wanted to buy them all. It is not theology, but the interests of editors and scribes.
There is certainly something to this idea. We know that ancient authors were conscious of the problem of textual survival and tried to write things that people would want to copy.
Someone wrote the first gospel, and it was further developed by him and other centers as a living document. In this way, 3 synoptic Gospels were created. The first gospel was based on information from the writings of Josephus. Mark’s Gospel as well.
Successive versions of this or that gospel inspired and supplemented all editors and ghost writers working on them. How long it took? The Gospel of Luke had no Preface and no genealogy in 175 CE, 90 years after it was said to have been written.
Ancient ghost writers and editors followed the same rules as today. If not for copyright protection, such Harry Potter would be written by thousands of ghost writers.
So I actually find this a somewhat plausible scenario–I’ve kicked the tyres on the theory of the synoptics as three versions of a living document, freely edited by any number of unknown scribes as they copied. The main objection I have to that sort of account is that there seems to be a coherence to the individual synoptics that seems to testify to the sort of unified vision you get from individual authors setting out to write their own version. They reworked stuff pretty liberally, but they reworked it in a unified and coherent way (coherence at both a linguistic and a thematic level), which doesn’t seem consistent with the process of a bunch of random authors each contributing their own little modifications to an existing story.
Porphyry said
Jarek said
Porphyry said
Jarek said
My suggestions simplify many problems. If Josephus was the source for the evangelists, TF originality issues are irrelevant.
You think Josephus was a source for all four gospels, including Mark?
Venn Diagram for Synoptic Gospels can be drawn for any entertainment content. All it says is that the three versions were created in parallel and that the authors knew each other perfectly for most of the process.
You think the synoptics all knew each other? So Mark, for example, wrote at the same time as Luke and was acquainted with his theology?
What’s more – they created these gospels in such a way that customers wanted to buy them all. It is not theology, but the interests of editors and scribes.
There is certainly something to this idea. We know that ancient authors were conscious of the problem of textual survival and tried to write things that people would want to copy.
Someone wrote the first gospel, and it was further developed by him and other centers as a living document. In this way, 3 synoptic Gospels were created. The first gospel was based on information from the writings of Josephus. Mark’s Gospel as well.
Successive versions of this or that gospel inspired and supplemented all editors and ghost writers working on them. How long it took? The Gospel of Luke had no Preface and no genealogy in 175 CE, 90 years after it was said to have been written.
Ancient ghost writers and editors followed the same rules as today. If not for copyright protection, such Harry Potter would be written by thousands of ghost writers.
So I actually find this a somewhat plausible scenario–I’ve kicked the tyres on the theory of the synoptics as three versions of a living document, freely edited by any number of unknown scribes as they copied. The main objection I have to that sort of account is that there seems to be a coherence to the individual synoptics that seems to testify to the sort of unified vision you get from individual authors setting out to write their own version. They reworked stuff pretty liberally, but they reworked it in a unified and coherent way (coherence at both a linguistic and a thematic level), which doesn’t seem consistent with the process of a bunch of random authors each contributing their own little modifications to an existing story.
They copy parts of the text, rearrange the order, add their own ideas, and everything takes place in a specific group of recipients, which imposes discipline on creation and editing. They offer value added to the previous version and to the competitors’ versions. Competition within a specific product was enough for them. The successful alternate creation is the gospel of John. It is different but complementary. It does not collide with the synoptic ones, but complements them.
Check out the Thorgal comic. 45 years of development, 70 books, 5 cartoonists, 4 screenwriters. Thorgal is the same. Someone may say – because there is strong character control by the publisher.
Believe me if there were no copyrights and there were 5 publishers Thorgal would be the same. People wouldn’t buy another
Robert said
Jarek said
Robert said
So are you back to 5% historical core or are you sticking with your new-found 100% pure creation? And please explain why.
There is difference. 5 % of 0 is 0. 5% of 1 is 5%.
Huh? What are you trying to say here? Yes, 5% of 0 is 0. But 5% of 1 is 0.05.
Historical Jesus was not located in space and time until gospels
Nonsensical. How could an historical Jesus not be located in space and time?
Please figure out what you’re trying to say and explain why you believe it.
Taking Paul’s words literally, God sent his son, born of a woman. He was crucified for our sins, he is risen. When was it and where? It is not known. Paul had a revelation of the resurrected Jesus and he didn’t know either. Did he know the stories of Jesus of Nazareth? If so, they did not impress him and he did not associate them with his message. All of this happened for Paul. Somewhere sometime.
Timothy Freke argues that the pagan LXX exegesis, Gnosticism, and the worship of Joshua gave rise to Christianity. Hermann Detering argued almost the same. Except that he analyzed Jewish Buddhist exegesis. Maybe yes, maybe no.
In my opinion, it was enough for someone to announce that God sent a son and it was great news to gather the first enthusiasts.
Jarek said
Robert said
Jarek said
Robert said
So are you back to 5% historical core or are you sticking with your new-found 100% pure creation? And please explain why.
There is difference. 5 % of 0 is 0. 5% of 1 is 5%.
Huh? What are you trying to say here? Yes, 5% of 0 is 0. But 5% of 1 is 0.05.
Historical Jesus was not located in space and time until gospels
Nonsensical. How could an historical Jesus not be located in space and time?
Please figure out what you’re trying to say and explain why you believe it.
Taking Paul’s words literally, God sent his son, born of a woman. He was crucified for our sins, he is risen. When was it and where? It is not known. Paul had a revelation of the resurrected Jesus and he didn’t know either. Did he know the stories of Jesus of Nazareth? If so, they did not impress him and he did not associate them with his message. All of this happened for Paul. Somewhere sometime.
Timothy Freke argues that the pagan LXX exegesis, Gnosticism, and the worship of Joshua gave rise to Christianity. Hermann Detering argued almost the same. Except that he analyzed Jewish Buddhist exegesis. Maybe yes, maybe no.
In my opinion, it was enough for someone to announce that God sent a son and it was great news to gather the first enthusiasts.
**Snort** @ Timothy Freke.
Bart Ehrman and Richard Carrier agree on little. But they do agree on Freke and his nonsense.
You need to up your game, Jarek.
Jarek said
Porphyry said
Jarek said
Porphyry said
Jarek said
My suggestions simplify many problems. If Josephus was the source for the evangelists, TF originality issues are irrelevant.
You think Josephus was a source for all four gospels, including Mark?
Venn Diagram for Synoptic Gospels can be drawn for any entertainment content. All it says is that the three versions were created in parallel and that the authors knew each other perfectly for most of the process.
You think the synoptics all knew each other? So Mark, for example, wrote at the same time as Luke and was acquainted with his theology?
What’s more – they created these gospels in such a way that customers wanted to buy them all. It is not theology, but the interests of editors and scribes.
There is certainly something to this idea. We know that ancient authors were conscious of the problem of textual survival and tried to write things that people would want to copy.
Someone wrote the first gospel, and it was further developed by him and other centers as a living document. In this way, 3 synoptic Gospels were created. The first gospel was based on information from the writings of Josephus. Mark’s Gospel as well.
Successive versions of this or that gospel inspired and supplemented all editors and ghost writers working on them. How long it took? The Gospel of Luke had no Preface and no genealogy in 175 CE, 90 years after it was said to have been written.
Ancient ghost writers and editors followed the same rules as today. If not for copyright protection, such Harry Potter would be written by thousands of ghost writers.
So I actually find this a somewhat plausible scenario–I’ve kicked the tyres on the theory of the synoptics as three versions of a living document, freely edited by any number of unknown scribes as they copied. The main objection I have to that sort of account is that there seems to be a coherence to the individual synoptics that seems to testify to the sort of unified vision you get from individual authors setting out to write their own version. They reworked stuff pretty liberally, but they reworked it in a unified and coherent way (coherence at both a linguistic and a thematic level), which doesn’t seem consistent with the process of a bunch of random authors each contributing their own little modifications to an existing story.
They copy parts of the text, rearrange the order, add their own ideas, and everything takes place in a specific group of recipients, which imposes discipline on creation and editing. They offer value added to the previous version and to the competitors’ versions. Competition within a specific product was enough for them. The successful alternate creation is the gospel of John. It is different but complementary. It does not collide with the synoptic ones, but complements them.
Check out the Thorgal comic. 45 years of development, 70 books, 5 cartoonists, 4 screenwriters. Thorgal is the same. Someone may say – because there is strong character control by the publisher.
Believe me if there were no copyrights and there were 5 publishers Thorgal would be the same. People wouldn’t buy another
That is sort of my point: There isn’t strong character controle between the three synoptics–Mark’s Jesus is very different from Luke’s; there isn’t a coherent “canonical universe” (in the comic book sense of the expression). But there is a tight coherence, at multiple levels of coherence, within the individual gospels, not among them.
The synoptics look a lot less like a fictional franchise, where each author creates a new episode but carefully conforms his story to the stories, characters, and universe that others have already established, and a lot more like a traditional tale in which three authors tell the same core story, but each one tells it in very much his own way with his own themes and style and does so with little desire to conform to the version that others have given before him, but rather each seems out quite often to fix what he sees as infelicities in prior tellings of the tale.
Stephen and all,
Thanks for your comments about the Resurrection of John. The resurrection of John is reported as “news” to King Herod, who deems it accurate enough to share with others as valid. The account of John is raised in all of the Synoptic gospels.
At that time, Herod the tetrarch heard the news about Jesus and said to his servants, “This is John the Baptist; he has been raised from the dead, and that is why miraculous powers are at work in him.” Mt,14:1-2
The fact it’s deemed “news” that King Herod relays it as valid means the account was more than a rumor. While likely not true, the talk had wide enough circulation that it was forwarded to Herod as accurate, and he believed it told others that it was factual.
Two historical standards validate John’s Resurrection perceived as accurate. The first is multiple attestations; Mark, Luke, and Matthew testify to John being raised from the dead. The second is that of contradiction. If an agent says something that’s not in their best interest, it’s more likely to be true.
Herod’s daughter’s two-hour dance and request for John’s beheading are dubious, but the Gospel writers amplify it to cloak the more likely reason John was put to death. Joephevius Flavius reports in Antiquities:
Herod, who feared that such strong influence over the people might carry to a revolt — for they seemed ready to do anything he should advise — believed it much better to move now than later have it raise a rebellion and engage him in actions he would regret.
Some Jews thought that the destruction of Herod’s army came from God and was a just punishment for what he did against John, called the baptist [the dipper]. Herod had him killed, although he was a good man.
1) John’s resurrection had wide enough currency to be treated as accurate, just like Jesus. This means Jesus’s resurrection could have become “real” through public dissemination.
2) Josephus said the real reason John was killed by Herod was a potential revolution, and he reports that some Jews believed the victory against Herod was retribution for John’s death.
3) It undermines the uniqueness of Jesus’s resurrection as no one implies John’s resurrection is false.
There are volumes on the power relations between Jesus and John, but the resurrection is not one of the factors emphasized or mentioned. It seems to me highly significant.
Sam
Newlogos said
Stephen and all,Thanks for your comments about the Resurrection of John. The resurrection of John is reported as “news” to King Herod, who deems it accurate enough to share with others as valid. The account of John is raised in all of the Synoptic gospels.
At that time, Herod the tetrarch heard the news about Jesus and said to his servants, “This is John the Baptist; he has been raised from the dead, and that is why miraculous powers are at work in him.” Mt,14:1-2
The fact it’s deemed “news” that King Herod relays it as valid means the account was more than a rumor. While likely not true, the talk had wide enough circulation that it was forwarded to Herod as accurate, and he believed it told others that it was factual.
Two historical standards validate John’s Resurrection perceived as accurate. The first is multiple attestations; Mark, Luke, and Matthew testify to John being raised from the dead. The second is that of contradiction. If an agent says something that’s not in their best interest, it’s more likely to be true.
Herod’s daughter’s two-hour dance and request for John’s beheading are dubious, but the Gospel writers amplify it to cloak the more likely reason John was put to death. Joephevius Flavius reports in Antiquities:
Herod, who feared that such strong influence over the people might carry to a revolt — for they seemed ready to do anything he should advise — believed it much better to move now than later have it raise a rebellion and engage him in actions he would regret.
Some Jews thought that the destruction of Herod’s army came from God and was a just punishment for what he did against John, called the baptist [the dipper]. Herod had him killed, although he was a good man.
1) John’s resurrection had wide enough currency to be treated as accurate, just like Jesus. This means Jesus’s resurrection could have become “real” through public dissemination.
2) Josephus said the real reason John was killed by Herod was a potential revolution, and he reports that some Jews believed the victory against Herod was retribution for John’s death.
3) It undermines the uniqueness of Jesus’s resurrection as no one implies John’s resurrection is false.
There are volumes on the power relations between Jesus and John, but the resurrection is not one of the factors emphasized or mentioned. It seems to me highly significant.
Sam
I’m still trying to figure out how John got around after his resurrection, what with that severed head thing he had going on.
CEJ said
Jarek said
Robert said
Jarek said
Robert said
So are you back to 5% historical core or are you sticking with your new-found 100% pure creation? And please explain why.
There is difference. 5 % of 0 is 0. 5% of 1 is 5%.
Huh? What are you trying to say here? Yes, 5% of 0 is 0. But 5% of 1 is 0.05.
Historical Jesus was not located in space and time until gospels
Nonsensical. How could an historical Jesus not be located in space and time?
Please figure out what you’re trying to say and explain why you believe it.
Taking Paul’s words literally, God sent his son, born of a woman. He was crucified for our sins, he is risen. When was it and where? It is not known. Paul had a revelation of the resurrected Jesus and he didn’t know either. Did he know the stories of Jesus of Nazareth? If so, they did not impress him and he did not associate them with his message. All of this happened for Paul. Somewhere sometime.
Timothy Freke argues that the pagan LXX exegesis, Gnosticism, and the worship of Joshua gave rise to Christianity. Hermann Detering argued almost the same. Except that he analyzed Jewish Buddhist exegesis. Maybe yes, maybe no.
In my opinion, it was enough for someone to announce that God sent a son and it was great news to gather the first enthusiasts.
**Snort** @ Timothy Freke.
Bart Ehrman and Richard Carrier agree on little. But they do agree on Freke and his nonsense.
You need to up your game, Jarek.
I juxtaposed Detering and Freke because they both refer to information from Philo of Alexandria about the Jewish gnosis. About the sects that preached the worship of Joshua. They treated the exodus as a spiritual transition between the worlds. I am familiar with Detering’s works on the convergence between Sāṃkhya Buddhism and Basilides’ gnosis. Everything is on radikalkritik.de.
Freke spoke similarly on YouTube. I don’t know his works
Porphyry said
Jarek said
Porphyry said
Jarek said
Porphyry said
Jarek said
My suggestions simplify many problems. If Josephus was the source for the evangelists, TF originality issues are irrelevant.
You think Josephus was a source for all four gospels, including Mark?
Venn Diagram for Synoptic Gospels can be drawn for any entertainment content. All it says is that the three versions were created in parallel and that the authors knew each other perfectly for most of the process.
You think the synoptics all knew each other? So Mark, for example, wrote at the same time as Luke and was acquainted with his theology?
What’s more – they created these gospels in such a way that customers wanted to buy them all. It is not theology, but the interests of editors and scribes.
There is certainly something to this idea. We know that ancient authors were conscious of the problem of textual survival and tried to write things that people would want to copy.
Someone wrote the first gospel, and it was further developed by him and other centers as a living document. In this way, 3 synoptic Gospels were created. The first gospel was based on information from the writings of Josephus. Mark’s Gospel as well.
Successive versions of this or that gospel inspired and supplemented all editors and ghost writers working on them. How long it took? The Gospel of Luke had no Preface and no genealogy in 175 CE, 90 years after it was said to have been written.
Ancient ghost writers and editors followed the same rules as today. If not for copyright protection, such Harry Potter would be written by thousands of ghost writers.
So I actually find this a somewhat plausible scenario–I’ve kicked the tyres on the theory of the synoptics as three versions of a living document, freely edited by any number of unknown scribes as they copied. The main objection I have to that sort of account is that there seems to be a coherence to the individual synoptics that seems to testify to the sort of unified vision you get from individual authors setting out to write their own version. They reworked stuff pretty liberally, but they reworked it in a unified and coherent way (coherence at both a linguistic and a thematic level), which doesn’t seem consistent with the process of a bunch of random authors each contributing their own little modifications to an existing story.
They copy parts of the text, rearrange the order, add their own ideas, and everything takes place in a specific group of recipients, which imposes discipline on creation and editing. They offer value added to the previous version and to the competitors’ versions. Competition within a specific product was enough for them. The successful alternate creation is the gospel of John. It is different but complementary. It does not collide with the synoptic ones, but complements them.
Check out the Thorgal comic. 45 years of development, 70 books, 5 cartoonists, 4 screenwriters. Thorgal is the same. Someone may say – because there is strong character control by the publisher.
Believe me if there were no copyrights and there were 5 publishers Thorgal would be the same. People wouldn’t buy another
That is sort of my point: There isn’t strong character controle between the three synoptics–Mark’s Jesus is very different from Luke’s; there isn’t a coherent “canonical universe” (in the comic book sense of the expression). But there is a tight coherence, at multiple levels of coherence, within the individual gospels, not among them.
The synoptics look a lot less like a fictional franchise, where each author creates a new episode but carefully conforms his story to the stories, characters, and universe that others have already established, and a lot more like a traditional tale in which three authors tell the same core story, but each one tells it in very much his own way with his own themes and style and does so with little desire to conform to the version that others have given before him, but rather each seems out quite often to fix what he sees as infelicities in prior tellings of the tale.
These are copywriters and anonymous editors. They sell the book and try to do their best. They follow their own intuition and change the material at their disposal in order to meet the tastes of the recipients.
Take a character from the Calvin and Hobbes daily comic strip. If it were not protected by copyright, his sophisticated and subtle joke, deep thoughts would certainly be supplemented with vulgar jokes to expand the audience to those who like crude humor. And it finally happened because despite the protection, more people know the Calvin pee bumper sticker than the original stripes themselves.
Calvin and Hobbes are also a great example of building characters with pericopes, most of which you could rearrange and lose none of the overall narrative.
Robert said
Jarek said
… Philo of Alexandria about the Jewish gnosis. About the sects that preached the worship of Joshua. They treated the exodus as a spiritual transition between the worlds. …
Where does Philo speak of Jewish sects worshipping Joshua?
Sorry.
I was wrong. Detering’s essay begins with the Alexandrian Teraputae sect representing, according to him, Jewish-Buddhist gnosis. They worshiped Moses. Only this sect is described by Philo in De vita contemplativa. The next step was to be the Nasseen and Peratae sects known from the writings of Hippolytus. These sects were to introduce the cult of Joshua. It is a different exegesis supported by the influence of Indian philosophy….
I mentioned it, but personally I have a simpler approach known from the everyday mass religious imagination.
– Mary appeared in Medjugorje.
– Really?
– Of course!
– Well let’s go…
In the version with Jesus, it may be so.
– God sent a son to save us
– How do you know?
– The one who had his revelation came.
– We’re going to listen…
Or “golden plates”…
– Do you see it?
– No, We do not see it.
– Well, you can see the difference.
The rest depends on activity and organizational efficiency
Robert said
Jarek said
There is a slight quantitative difference between me and, for example, Ludemann. He says 95% is a creation. I say 100%. There is, however, a huge methodological difference between us. I analyze a much larger disciplinary spectrum and am open to all biblical studies. Ludemann is only interested in biblical studies, trying to answer questions without going into other ddisciplines.
Thank you, Jarek! You’re self-proclaimed superior methodology to that of of Gerd Lüdemann is the best laugh I’ve had in a very long time.
You are welcome. So I thought that if I compare myself to your champion, you won’t be indifferent.
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