Technomage vs. AmbigGuy: The (non)Historical Jesus

[AmbiguousGuy]

[slightly revised]

A few years ago my attention was drawn to the question of the historicity of Jesus. I'd overheard some debates and I began to join in and ask questions. All my life I'd thoughtlessly followed the cultural assumption that Jesus actually existed around 30CE, so I was pretty surprised when I saw that the most powerful evidence seemed to be against Jesus. It slowly dawned on me that he was most probably a fiction. Since that time, I've floated my opinion around, wondering if anyone could batter it into a different shape, but so far I've heard little evidence or argument for the historical Jesus (HJ). Certainly none that has shifted my position.

Of course, it's just my opinion. What else could it be? But, curiously, I saw that my opinion seemed to anger some people. Actually it seemed to anger most everyone on the HJ side, which perplexed me at first. I'd thought that we were mostly beyond being angered by Jesus opinions one way or the other. But apparently there are real things at risk. Jobs, ministries, entire academic fields, career reputations... maybe even souls? Surely, I thought, these same people wouldn't be the least upset if I doubted the historicity of Robin Hood or Beowulf.

But that's all digression. I'm sure we'll see no such anger here in this thread.

The reason we are here, now, is that my friend Technomage has agreed to a one-on-one debate with me regarding the (non)historical Jesus. Pretty exciting. I tried to hire a Madison Avenue PR firm to do some promotion, but they hung up on me when they heard the subject matter. Tell all your friends to come and watch. If it goes well, we might do T-shirts.

I'm happy to be called 'Ambig' or 'AG' or any other thing, and I hope the Technomage is OK with 'Techno.'

So. Here are a couple of points which I find to be powerful arguments for my best guess about Jesus -- my Jesus Theory -- which is that Mark probably created Jesus, setting into 30 CE Jerusalem the character who was already central to the early Christian religion.

1) The Synoptic Gospels: Matthew, Mark and Luke. I write a little fiction, so I know what a pile of revisions looks like. For every story I've written, there is a box or an efile full of versions which look quite a bit like the finished story. Each one contains blocks of text which track, verbatim, blocks of text in the other versions... just as we find with the synoptic gospels.

I sit at my desk crafting my story, improving it, dramatizing it, finding new details which make it work better. No, I don't like the stone already rolled away from Jesus' tomb when the women arrive. Let's have an angel come and roll it away right in front of them! Yeah, I like that better.

So I conclude that Matthew and Luke are not any sort of arm's-length storytelling. Instead, they are revisions of Mark's original and probably-fictional story. Would you revise another guy's diary entry? Would you revise a news article? Probably not. You'd just write your own version of events. But you might revise an exciting new theological/fictional work, especially if you lived 2,000 years ago and gospel-writing were all the rage. In today's world, of course, gMatthew and gLuke could not be published at all. They'd be sued by Mark for plagiarism before they could be printed. I think of the gospels as a sort of shared fan fiction. Everyone was writing a gospel, as everyone for the past 100 years has wanted to write a new and better vampire story.

I consider all other gospels, including John, to be hopelessly distant in time from the supposed HJ. I take John no more historically than I take the Book of Mormon so far as evidence of the HJ. I also think Mark is suspiciously distant in time. I can see no reason to wait 40 years to write about a messiah, not if he were actually historical.

2) Paul's silence. By all accounts Paul was a fanatic. He loved the Christ during every millisecond of his waking life. He was downright infatuated. And everyone seems to agree that Paul was in Jerusalem, meeting with members of Jesus' entourage, shortly after 30 CE. So we know for a certainty that Paul would have sucked them dry for every last detail of Jesus' earthly ministry. He would have known everything about Jesus life and probably four or five versions of every major incident.

And yet Paul doesn't speak of a real, historical, 30CE Jesus.

Have you ever preached a sermon? I haven't, but I've listened to a bunch, sometimes listening to their rehearsals from distant rooms in the house. And I can tell you that preachers are always taking incidents from real life as the kernels of their sermons. If the dog bit the mailman, well, there's a way to use that in the Sunday morning sermon.
So why doesn't Paul go on and on about the 30CE historical Jesus, about events from his earthly life? As he speaks about the storm threatening his ship, why doesn't he say, "As the angry and chaotic mobs came for Jesus, so did the thunder and wind come for me."

Why does he seem unaware that a physical man was being claimed to have lived during his own lifetime? Well, because he wrote his letters before Mark came up with his story about a real man who lived just a few years earlier. That seems the most reasonable explanation.

And when we consider that some of the epistles were written by false Pauls, we can be even more sure that there was no real Jesus to describe during this time. One letter writer might have neglected to mention Jesus. But various letter writers, none of whom gave us any details of the 30 CE Jesus? That doesn't pass my straight-face test.

3) The Jerusalem Church is too soon. Its existence in Paul's time points to an earlier beginning.

4) Many Jewish messiahs have been claimed, but only one has succeeded. Why? Because -- unlike all the others -- he was fictional.

I could go on and on. By now my view of the HJ is turning into an actual theory. There are still lots of holes in it, of course, but that's the main reason I continue to debate it. Maybe I'm missing something.

If so, I'm sure Technomage will set me straight. Let's see.

 

[technomage]

I want to thank AG For starting this thread, and especially for his attempts at getting some backing for this enterprise. It's too bad about the PR firm hanging up on him, but you should see the t-shirt design he's got ready to go to the printer. Now if I could only persuade him to go with 100% cotton instead of that poly blend ... I know it's more expensive, but it will really catch on with the hipster crowd!

When it comes to the Historical Jesus, there are a few things we need to discard right from the outset. The items being discarded will not set well with conservative and many moderate Christians, but there is a reason for what we choose to eject: while the Gospels are evidence for the existence of Jesus, a preacher from Galilee, they are very poor evidence. The Gospels are not eye-witness accounts (not even GoMark), two of them are derivative from a third, and all of them are a lot more concerned with doctrinal teachings than with a modern concept of "historicity."

There is a genre of Greco-Roman writing called _bioi_--basically "lives," what we would today call biography. If it comes to that point, I have an article in progress that shows how the Gospels sort of fit into the bioi genre, and sort of don't. Now, before anyone in the audience thinks the bioi genre is some kind of slam-dunk argument that Jesus was a historical character, I'm afraid I have bad news: the classic Greco-Roman example of bioi is Plutarch's Parallel Lives, which includes legendary characters such as Theseus and Romulus. So no, even if the Gospels could be considered bioi, that's not proof that Jesus was a historical person.

So what do we have in the way of evidence of Jesus as a historical person? We have the letters of Paul that mention him ... but for the most part, they talk about Jesus as a risen Christ, not as a historical person. And we have the Gospels, as problematic as they are.

The argument that Jesus was a historical person rests upon _weak evidence_. There's just no two ways about it: the HJ hypothesis is in trouble. So, admittedly, I have my work cut out for me. To win this debate, I have to either establish that the hypothesis of a fictional Jesus (gonna call that hypothesis FJ) rests on _no_ evidence, or on _even weaker_ evidence.

That's where the fun comes in.

So let's see what AG brings to the table in support of the "fictional Jesus," or FJ, hypothesis.

1) The Synoptic Gospels: Matthew, Mark and Luke. I write a little fiction, so I know what a pile of revisions looks like. For every story I've written, there is a box or an efile full of versions which look quite a bit like the finished story. Each one contains blocks of text which track, verbatim, blocks of text in the other versions... just as we find with the synoptic gospels.

Now this is an interesting, and novel, argument: the progression of the Gospels looks exactly like the progression a fictional story takes, through multiple revisions, to the finished product. Hey, maybe there is something to the FJ hypothesis! But there's a problem, and potentially a severe one. This is the same progression of repeated revisions that _any_ modern document goes through.

I have to admit, I'm making my reply off the cuff, so I'm not making this as substantial as I could. Yes, I am correcting errors as I go along, and yes, if I find something interesting to add in an already finished section, I'll go and edit it in. Hey, all I'm doing is pushing electrons, so no big deal, right?

So I conclude that Matthew and Luke are not any sort of arm's-length storytelling. Instead, they are revisions of Mark's original and probably-fictional story.

Are Matthew and Luke extensions and revisions of Mark? Certainly: Matthew copied from Mark, and in turn it looks like Luke may have copied both from Mark and Matthew. (the argument that Luke did not copy from Matthew is where the argument for Q comes in.) That's where we get all the "double tradition" and "triple tradition" stuff--had these guys been in a modern college class, the accusations of plagiarism would have been fast and furious.

But saying that, in turn, Mark's gospel was "probably fictional" is begging the question in several regards.
* First, we have other examples of Jewish, Greek, and Roman fiction. The narrative structure of the Gospels does not match the narrative structure of these tales, and there is little or nothing in the way of commonalities to compare the two genres.
* Secondly, if GoMark had been fictional, it was (flatly) horrible fiction, even for (or especially by) the standards of that time. The main protagonist dies a shameful death, there is no connection (as there is in Greek tragic writing) between hubris or any other overwhelming character flaw and the characters punishment, there is no "happy ending" celebrating the reward for the protagonist's good deeds. In short, if it was fiction, it broke every rule of fiction of that time.
* Third, and perhaps most important, while we have at least _some_ evidence to deduce that Mark was writing bout a historical character, we have nothing but speculation to support the assertion that it fictional--indeed, that speculation requires discarding the evidence that is available solely for the convenience of the hypothesis. We can argue, albeit weakly, about the historicity of Jesus, based on the evidence. The argument that Jesus is fictional requires closing our eyes to everything but our own preconceptions.

Additionally, we have a third Gospel tradition: Thomas. There is considerable overlap, but little or nothing in the way of "word-for-word" copying in Thomas. About half of GoThomas has similar ideas to sayings of Jesus in the Gospels, about half of it is brought in from Gospel teachings. The presence of Thomas indicates a viable oral tradition: the question here is whether or not the oral tradition is early (and thus influenced both GoMark and GoThom) or late (and thus was influenced by the written canonical Gospels). Unfortunately, there is no scholarly consensus as to the date of GoThomas.

Well, first point done and dispensed with ... but unfortunately, it's not a slam-dunk victory for me. I kid of feel like Luke Skywalker at the end of "The Empire Strikes Back"--battered and bruised, and knowing there's more to fight out there. But here goes.

2) Paul's silence ... And yet Paul doesn't speak of a real, historical, 30CE Jesus.

First and foremost, let's separate the genuine from the pseudo-pauline letters. Most scholars agree to the authenticity of the following letters: First Thessalonians (ca. 51 CE); Philippians (ca. 52–54 CE); Philemon (ca. 52–54 CE); First Corinthians (ca. 53–54 CE); Galatians (ca. 55 CE); Second Corinthians (ca. 55–56 AD); Romans (ca. 55–58 AD).

All of the other stuff is much later, and is usually dated to between 80-100 CE. We can immediately discard these letters as having any significance to Paul's silence.

You are correct: Paul never talks about Jesus walking around Jerusalem, or Galilee, or any of that. The closest Paul gets to doing so is a brief mention in 1 Cor 15:3-8, and except for the mention of "he died" and "he was buried," all if the text there talks about Jesus's supposed post-resurrection appearances.

Is it odd? Possibly, but it is also understandable. Paul's letters are not broad doctrinal addresses with lots of stories and anecdotes and quotations of Jesus: he is specifically dealing with problem issues.

Paul's letters do point to the existence of Jesus, but the evidence is exceedingly weak. No slam-dunk arguments here, I'm afraid.

3) The Jerusalem Church is too soon. Its existence in Paul's time points to an earlier beginning.

There's a scholarly guess that Paul's conversion was sometime around 31-36 CE. I don't know the logic behind the guess, but for now let's go ahead and just assume that it's more-or-less accurate. That's anywhere between 1 year to 8 years after the Crucifixion.

What makes you think a nascent religious movement couldn't form during that time? Nowhere is it claimed that the church was "organized," or that they had been around for a while. I'd like to hear you expand on this point before I make any substantive counter-argument.

4) Many Jewish messiahs have been claimed, but only one has succeeded. Why? Because -- unlike all the others -- he was fictional.

Oy! Again with the question-begging.

But more accurately, ALL of the messianic claimants failed ... including Jesus. The Church that developed from his teachings was nothing like he had been preaching about, because he was a faithful Jew. James, Peter, and the rest of the gang (and Paul once he joined) are the ones who went off the rails, not Jesus.

There's more I could add, but the last two points really need more substantial input from AG, before they can be considered. All in all, it looks like the evidence for the existence of HJ is weak ... and it is. But as weak as that evidence is, it is stronger than the evidence for FJ.

And please, AmbiguousMan, PLEASE, consider the all-cotton t-shirts. Come on, think of the hipsters!

 

[Quagmire]

***Mod Post***

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This is a debate between Technomage and Ambigiousguy. Any posts made by anyone else (Mod Posts not included) will be deleted.​

 

[AmbiguousGuy]

So what do we have in the way of evidence of Jesus as a historical person? We have the letters of Paul that mention him ... but for the most part, they talk about Jesus as a risen Christ, not as a historical person. And we have the Gospels, as problematic as they are.

Some would argue that we also have the Book of Mormon and many other gospels. I always wonder where the line is drawn between gospels which might be 'historical evidence' and gospels which might be discarded as too late and therefore non-historical (BOM, etc.). For me, gJohn falls in the latter group. So does any historian writing about Jesus later than 60 CE. or so.

As I say, I discard gMatt and gLuke for being revisions, literary endeavors, rather than independent tellings, while Paul's letters, as you seem to agree, don't seem to speak of a 30CE Jesus.

So I only have gMark as evidence worth examining. One text, written 2000 years ago, at least 40 years after the supposed events, by a non-native, non-witness, with no surviving copy, etc.... about a god/man magician who could multiply fishes, heal the blind, raise the dead.

To me it seems that if Christianity and its assumptions didn't permeate our culture, no one would give the historical Jesus a serious thought. It seems that our belief about his historicity is completely dependent on our ancestors' beliefs.

Now this is an interesting, and novel, argument: the progression of the Gospels looks exactly like the progression a fictional story takes, through multiple revisions, to the finished product. Hey, maybe there is something to the FJ hypothesis! But there's a problem, and potentially a severe one. This is the same progression of repeated revisions that _any_ modern document goes through.

I'm not sure what you mean. gMatt, gLuke, and gMark are usually considered three separate books, separate stories. You're agreeing that they aren't -- that they should be viewed as revisions of the same original story, rather than standalone recountings of the gospel story? If so, that's great. We can put gMatt and gLuke aside, along with gJohn (?), and focus only on gMark.

Are Matthew and Luke extensions and revisions of Mark? Certainly: Matthew copied from Mark, and in turn it looks like Luke may have copied both from Mark and Matthew.

OK. Thanks for making this part of our discussion go easily.

But saying that, in turn, Mark's gospel was "probably fictional" is begging the question in several regards.

Maybe begging the question. Maybe just offering my opinion.

* First, we have other examples of Jewish, Greek, and Roman fiction. The narrative structure of the Gospels does not match the narrative structure of these tales, and there is little or nothing in the way of commonalities to compare the two genres.

I could as easly declare that the genres match perfectly. It's a subjective call. English PhDs today argue fiercely over the nature of various genres and whether certain works fit this one or not. But I won't do that. Instead I'll claim that Mark was a genius or lucky or whatever. He (or someone before him) wrote a new sort of literature. Let's call it 'gospel' literature. In this genre, one writes the story of the Christ as if he had actually been an historial character, living in Jerusalem around 30CE.

* Secondly, if GoMark had been fictional, it was (flatly) horrible fiction, even for (or especially by) the standards of that time. The main protagonist dies a shameful death, there is no connection (as there is in Greek tragic writing) between hubris or any other overwhelming character flaw and the characters punishment, there is no "happy ending" celebrating the reward for the protagonist's good deeds. In short, if it was fiction, it broke every rule of fiction of that time.

Yeah, that's why it was so wildly successful. New types of fiction sometimes hit big.

Of course, it was not at all horrible fiction. It's actually a most excellent fiction. Downtrodden teacher/healer, actually the son of God come to earth, hated by the Establishment for rocking the boat, betrayed, executed... but HALLELUJAH!!... He rises.

Horrible fiction? Come on.

* Third, and perhaps most important, while we have at least _some_ evidence to deduce that Mark was writing bout a historical character, we have nothing but speculation to support the assertion that it fictional--indeed, that speculation requires discarding the evidence that is available solely for the convenience of the hypothesis.

Begging the question. We have no evidence to deduce that Mark was writing about an historical character. That's just you assuming that we have that evidence. The better, more reasonable conclusion, is that he was writing fiction.

We can argue, albeit weakly, about the historicity of Jesus, based on the evidence. The argument that Jesus is fictional requires closing our eyes to everything but our own preconceptions.

Begging the question. Really... just asserting your conclusion. Which is fine -- this being a debate and all.

Additionally, we have a third Gospel tradition: Thomas. There is considerable overlap, but little or nothing in the way of "word-for-word" copying in Thomas. About half of GoThomas has similar ideas to sayings of Jesus in the Gospels, about half of it is brought in from Gospel teachings. The presence of Thomas indicates a viable oral tradition:

Oral tradition? I'm not sure what you mean. Thomas is a sayings gospel. It doesn't tell any story about a man named Jesus, does it?

I'm guessing that it is a collection of saying which were going around back then and which someone decided to attribute to Jesus, the new messiah.

Isn't that the best explanation, or have I got something wrong?

You are correct: Paul never talks about Jesus walking around Jerusalem, or Galilee, or any of that. The closest Paul gets to doing so is a brief mention in 1 Cor 15:3-8, and except for the mention of "he died" and "he was buried," all if the text there talks about Jesus's supposed post-resurrection appearances.

Thanks again for making things easier. Lots of HJers will still argue that Paul did indeed speak of the 30CE Jesus.

Is it odd? Possibly, but it is also understandable. Paul's letters are not broad doctrinal addresses with lots of stories and anecdotes and quotations of Jesus: he is specifically dealing with problem issues.

That's the standard (and only) response I've heard from HJers to Paul's silence, but I think it entirely misses the mark. I think nothing could have stopped Paul from discussing the earthly Jesus if he'd known anything about that Jesus. So I guess we just disagree on this point.

3) The Jerusalem Church is too soon. Its existence in Paul's time points to an earlier beginning.
There's a scholarly guess that Paul's conversion was sometime around 31-36 CE. I don't know the logic behind the guess, but for now let's go ahead and just assume that it's more-or-less accurate. That's anywhere between 1 year to 8 years after the Crucifixion.

We can assume that if you like, although it requires that we ignore/discount the incident with Stephen. Saul was called a young man there. So the church would have existed before Jesus death, wouldn't it? But so much of the NT has to be waved away to make it all make sense, as I think you agree. Weren't you the one who suggested that Paul was just bragging when he declared that he had learned of Christ from no man?

Anyway, your own scenario requires Saul to be persecuting Christians even before Jesus died. He was apparently traveling to foreign cities to root out the Christians prior to Jesus death. Is that what you believe? Or have I got you wrong?

What makes you think a nascent religious movement couldn't form during that time? Nowhere is it claimed that the church was "organized," or that they had been around for a while. I'd like to hear you expand on this point before I make any substantive counter-argument.

To whom was Paul writing letters during what time? If there were already doctrinal issues, in Asia Minor churches, in 35-40 CE or earlier, I'd say that's too soon for the church to have grown from a 30CE Jesus. Especially when we consider that most biblical scholars see Jesus as making no real mark on the psyche of Jerusalem. An improverished preacher, crucified. No one really noticing. If that's the case, how did churches grow in Asia Minor and even have doctrinal battles within 10 years of Jesus' death?

But more accurately, ALL of the messianic claimants failed ... including Jesus. The Church that developed from his teachings was nothing like he had been preaching about, because he was a faithful Jew. James, Peter, and the rest of the gang (and Paul once he joined) are the ones who went off the rails, not Jesus.

Not sure what you're saying. Christianity based on Jesus as the messiah sure doesn't seem like a failure to me. There are hundreds of millions of Christians today. Of course their theology is all over the board, but they call themselves Christians.

There's more I could add, but the last two points really need more substantial input from AG, before they can be considered. All in all, it looks like the evidence for the existence of HJ is weak ... and it is. But as weak as that evidence is, it is stronger than the evidence for FJ.

That can't be so. Over the years I have noticed that I am always on the winning side of any debate. It's kinda uncanny. Anyway, we should probably assume, based on history, that I'm on the right side of this one.

 

[technomage]

Some would argue that we also have the Book of Mormon and many other gospels. I always wonder where the line is drawn between gospels which might be 'historical evidence' and gospels which might be discarded as too late and therefore non-historical (BOM, etc.). For me, gJohn falls in the latter group.

A couple of things to remember: when we discuss literary traditions, we look for independent sources. The BoM is dependent upon the Bible (specifically, on the King James Version), so we don't count that. But as I noted before, we have three relatively early source traditions:

* The Synoptics: GoMark -> GoMatt -> GoLuke
* GoJohn
* GoThomas

That's four separate sources if you include Paul.

Now we do have other sources, but those are dependent on talking to Christians who are not eyewitnesses, not on the oral tradition. Tacitus, Josephus, Mara bar Sarapion, Suetonius, and even some possible references in the Talmud. But none of these really tell us anything of import. The relative silence of the Talmud is of particular notice: regardless of the existential status of Jesus (either as a historical or as a literary character), he didn't make much of a splash in the Judean world.

But the four source traditions that we do have are significant. They are independent of each other, and the earliest goes back to less than 25 years after his death. We have two sources that are asserted to have spoken with eyewitnesses (Paul and GoMark). We have three sources that have a significant, and unlikely, event to add in a literary sense: the crucifixion. And we have a date range for the crucifixion: during the reign of Pilate (26-36 CE).

So does any historian writing about Jesus later than 60 CE. or so.

60 ce? Mighty convenient, seeing as the earliest gospel was written around 70-75 ce.

As I say, I discard gMatt and gLuke for being revisions, literary endeavors, rather than independent tellings, while Paul's letters, as you seem to agree, don't seem to speak of a 30CE Jesus.

Not quite. The single reference I pointed to in 1 Corinthians does speak of a living Jesus, if only briefly. (30CE is a modern date approximation, and therefore anachronostic to the question.)

Maybe begging the question. Maybe just offering my opinion.

AG, uninformed opinions mean nothing in historical research. Nothing.

Don't take that as an insult. Having an informed opinion in this (or any) topic is the result of a considerable amount of non-trivial work, delving into the language, the contemporary literature, and the historical and cultural context.

I could as easly declare that the genres match perfectly. It's a subjective call.

It may look like a subjective call to you, looking from the outside in. It is most certainly NOT a subjective call once you've studied the comparative literature. Oh, to be sure, it's not necessarily cut-and-dried, but there is a decent body of evidence that can be used for comparison.

We have five Greek novels, one Roman novel. We have considerable corpora of shorter fictional works from Jewish, Greek, and Roman literature. While each culture produced specific distinctives in their literary corpora, we have a sufficient body of work to compare with. The comparison to any of the literary traditions simply isn't there. This is especially true with Paul, the Johanine tradition, and the Thomasine tradition: Paul not only assumes existence, he assumes the audience already knows what was available about the details of Jesus' life. And we do have later, fictional accounts within the Christian tradition to compare to: the Infancy Gospels, various hagiographies, and some of the non-canonicals give a body of Christian fiction to work with as well.

Of course, it was not at all horrible fiction. It's actually a most excellent fiction. Downtrodden teacher/healer, actually the son of God come to earth, hated by the Establishment for rocking the boat, betrayed, executed... but HALLELUJAH!!... He rises.

AG, GoMark doesn't speak of Jesus rising from the dead. Mark originally ended at 16:8--the women fled, in fear, from the empty tomb. They don't know why the tomb is empty. That's why somebody came along later and added the rest of the chapter: people wanted to know what hppened next.

Begging the question. We have no evidence to deduce that Mark was writing about an historical character.

Unfortunately for your argument, AG, you are incorrect. Paul's assertion of Jesus dying and being buried is an assertion of a real person, not of a fictional character.

Oral tradition? I'm not sure what you mean. Thomas is a sayings gospel. It doesn't tell any story about a man named Jesus, does it?

Nope, GoThomas has no narrative--it's just a collection of sayings, a "logia."

We can assume that if you like, although it requires that we ignore/discount the incident with Stephen. Saul was called a young man there. So the church would have existed before Jesus death, wouldn't it?

Nope. Let's say Stephen was executed just a year after Jesus' death. You have time in that year for people to start preaching and for other groups to start getting converts of their own.

To whom was Paul writing letters during what time? If there were already doctrinal issues, in Asia Minor churches, in 35-40 CE or earlier, I'd say that's too soon for the church to have grown from a 30CE Jesus.

Where are you getting a 35-40 CE date for Paul's letters? Most scholars count Paul's earliest letter as being ca. 51 CE, which is more than sufficient time for doctrinal divergence to develop.

Case in point: look at the history of Wicca. The New Forest Coven was founded in the 1930s, and Gardner wrote _High Magic's Aid_ in 1949. Between these two dates, you had several dozen members, at least two schismatic splits, various people going off to create their own version, and at least one close brush with the law.

Not sure what you're saying. Christianity based on Jesus as the messiah sure doesn't seem like a failure to me.

It's a failed messianic movement in that it didn't do what the founder intended. If the text is accurate in this regard, Jesus was preaching "The kingdom of heaven is at hand," but then he gets himself snuffed before the kingdom appears. Next thing you know, James, Peter, and later Paul go off the rails talking about Jesus coming back from the dead, and the Johanines _really_ go wild talking about Jesus being one and the same entity with God.

That can't be so. Over the years I have noticed that I am always on the winning side of any debate. It's kinda uncanny. Anyway, we should probably assume, based on history, that I'm on the right side of this one.

Well, you know what they say. "Past performance may not be indicative of future results."

 

[AmbiguousGuy]

Post 1 of 2

A couple of things to remember: when we discuss literary traditions, we look for independent sources. The BoM is dependent upon the Bible (specifically, on the King James Version), so we don't count that. But as I noted before, we have three relatively early source traditions:
* The Synoptics: GoMark -> GoMatt -> GoLuke
* GoJohn
* GoThomas
That's four separate sources if you include Paul.

I don't understand. Why is gJohn independent but the BOM isn't independent? Are you thinking that John never heard of the synoptics or of Paul's letters? If so, why do you make the assumption that Joseph Smith had the synoptics in front of him but that John didn't?

As for gThomas, I repeat the question which you declined to answer from my last message: Isn't it entirely plausible that the saying from gThomas were already drifting around that area and that someone just pasted 'Jesus said' onto them? If not, why not?

gThomas could be about someone entirely different from Jesus and certainly different from a 30CE Jesus... yes? I'd guess they were sayings from the different mystic communities which were later attributed to Jesus. They sound like really bad zen musings to me, although I realize that we can't understand them without knowing the culture/theology in which they were penned. If Jesus said them, Jesus was stoned, I think.

And I thought you agreed that Paul didn't speak of a 30CE Jesus, so I'm not sure why you are including him in your list as evidence of an HJ.

I also find it curious that you list 'the synoptics' rather than 'gMark.' If gMatt and gLuke are revisions, surely you don't count them as independent sources for Jesus?

Anyway, it seems to me that we still only have gMark as a source for the 30CE Jesus.

Now we do have other sources, but those are dependent on talking to Christians who are not eyewitnesses, not on the oral tradition. Tacitus, Josephus, Mara bar Sarapion, Suetonius, and even some possible references in the Talmud. But none of these really tell us anything of import.

We also have every historian who ever lived and talked to Christians and then recounted what the Christians said.

It seems so curious to me that Historical Jesusers (HJers) accept 'ancient' historians as relevant to the HJ but discount historians writing in 1952. Where do we draw the line between historians-who-actually-knew-something and historians-just-writing-their-take-on-history?

The relative silence of the Talmud is of particular notice: regardless of the existential status of Jesus (either as a historical or as a literary character), he didn't make much of a splash in the Judean world.

Yeah, the Jerusalem Jews seem not to have noticed Jesus. Most curious.

But the four source traditions that we do have are significant. They are independent of each other, and the earliest goes back to less than 25 years after his death.

To review:

1) Paul goes back to 25 years after JC's death, but Paul is evidence on my side, him being apparently oblivious to a 30CE JC.

2) gThomas is a sayings gospel with 'Jesus' tacked on, so not relevant. The Jesus of gThomas could have existed in 500 BCE or in 75 BCE, which is around when I reckon the proto-Jesus may have actually existed.

3) gJohn is as 'independent' as the BOM. Like the BOM, it's just a rewriting of the Jesus story -- as Ann Rice and a thousand others have rewritten the vampires.

We have two sources that are asserted to have spoken with eyewitnesses (Paul and GoMark).

Vampire stories make the same assertions. I think Rice's first book claimed that the writer was actually speaking with the vampire.

But if Paul did indeed speak to eyewitnesses, then his silence about a 30CE Jesus counts expecially hard against a 30CE Jesus.

We have three sources that have a significant, and unlikely, event to add in a literary sense: the crucifixion. And we have a date range for the crucifixion: during the reign of Pilate (26-36 CE).

From a literary/fiction angle, the crucifixion is the most likely event to be added to the tale. Crucified saviors are sprinkled all around during those times, aren't they? Adding it during Pilate's reign was a mistake, I think. Too easy to disprove. They should have claimed it during an earlier time, I think.

60 ce? Mighty convenient, seeing as the earliest gospel was written around 70-75 ce.

I don't know what you mean, but there's an historian who just put out a book claiming that in 1965, a magic-doing godman lived in the Amazon and worked many miracles among the natives there.

Do you believe this historian? Do his reports make you think of the Amazonian godman as probably historical? The historian wasn't actually there. He wasn't born until 1984. He's just recounting what the godman's current followers say about him.

So do you believe that the historian's book is good evidence of the Amazonian godman's historicity? (There's no other mention of the godman by the Brazilian government or by anyone else and no writings, birth records, newspaper articles, etc. Nothing.)

I find it most curious that HJers are so happy to accept stories from 'ancient' historians about the historical Jesus, written years after the man supposedly lived. To me it seems like a serious grasping at straws. A special pleading. I doubt these same folks would accept a modern historian writing about a magic-man from 50 years ago.

Not quite. The single reference I pointed to in 1 Corinthians does speak of a living Jesus, if only briefly. (30CE is a modern date approximation, and therefore anachronostic to the question.)

30 CE is a convenient shortcut tern --meaning 'approximately 30CE'. As for Paul, he was almost surely referring to my 75BCE Jesus. If a Jesus had lived in Paul's own lifetime, we would have heard details about the man himself.

AG, uninformed opinions mean nothing in historical research. Nothing.

Oh, please. There's no need for such humility, Techno. I value your opinion about the HJ no matter how uninformed. We all try our best with what we have. And I am here to help you along when you stumble. Just ask.

Having an informed opinion in this (or any) topic is the result of a considerable amount of non-trivial work, delving into the language, the contemporary literature, and the historical and cultural context.

Thank you for recognizing how hard I've worked. It's gracious of you, and I'd like to encourage you to do some of this work yourself. It really will deepen your understanding of the HJ, I think.

It may look like a subjective call to you, looking from the outside in. It is most certainly NOT a subjective call once you've studied the comparative literature.

Yeah, that's exactly what my English PhD friends say about my other English PhD friends when they disagree over genre issues.

"It's NOT a subjective call!"

Each side claims to own the objective truth. Me, I'm skeptical of certainty. Undue certainty seems to infect us in direct proportion to our specialization in an area of study -- especially loosey-goosey stuff like literature and ancient history, don't you agree?

Paul not only assumes existence, he assumes the audience already knows what was available about the details of Jesus' life.

If you believe it, then you believe it. But you must realize that uninformed opinions mean nothing in historical research.

(Not an insult. Please take it in the spirit in which it was offered.)

[continued below....]

 

[AmbiguousGuy]

[Post 2 of 2]

AG, GoMark doesn't speak of Jesus rising from the dead. Mark originally ended at 16:8--the women fled, in fear, from the empty tomb. They don't know why the tomb is empty. That's why somebody came along later and added the rest of the chapter: people wanted to know what happened next.

The existing text of gMark doesn't have it, but I find it hard to believe that he left that bit off when he wrote it.

But maybe. It's a better way to work fiction, really. We subtle writers end with implication. We don't show Jesus coming out of the tomb and making grand speeches to the adoring masses and then ascending to Heaven. Instead, we just show the empty tomb and let your imagination tell you the rest of the story. Notice the endings of various movies.

Unfortunately for your argument, AG, you are incorrect. Paul's assertion of Jesus dying and being buried is an assertion of a real person, not of a fictional character.

Huh? We were talking about Mark, weren't we? Not Paul. Paul was talking about the guy who lived and died around 75 BCE.

Obviously Paul didn't believe in a Jesus who lived in his own time. I was thinking we had settled that question between us.

Nope, GoThomas has no narrative--it's just a collection of sayings, a "logia."

So it tells us absolutely nothing about an historical Jesus, yes? But you seem to imply otherwise, so I'm confused. Could you just state, clearly, whether you take gThomas as evidence for a 30CE Jesus, and why?

Nope. Let's say Stephen was executed just a year after Jesus' death. You have time in that year for people to start preaching and for other groups to start getting converts of their own.

You're going to have to explain something to me, a critical question: If Jesus was unnoticed in Jerusalem during his own lifetime, as you seem to agree, what exactly made everyone suddenly begin to worship him and organize a religion around him?

Many scholars accept that most of the "Big Ideas" were put into Jesus' mouth by later theologians, don't they?

Most scholars don't believe that he rose from the dead.

So what was it about Jesus which made everyone jump up and start worshipping him within a year of his death, unlike every messiah who came before and after him? What was different about Jesus?

Where are you getting a 35-40 CE date for Paul's letters? Most scholars count Paul's earliest letter as being ca. 51 CE, which is more than sufficient time for doctrinal divergence to develop.

I didn't say his letters were written 35-40 CE. I'm just assuming that doctrinal disputes preceded Paul's letters. One doesn't get into a fight over doctrine on Monday and have it resolved by the bishop on Wednesday. Doctrinal differences take time to develop and to fester against opposing doctrines. So I assume the problems started long before Paul wrote his letters and therefore too soon after 30 CE.

Case in point: look at the history of Wicca. The New Forest Coven was founded in the 1930s, and Gardner wrote _High Magic's Aid_ in 1949. Between these two dates, you had several dozen members, at least two schismatic splits, various people going off to create their own version, and at least one close brush with the law.

Several dozen members? And you think that compares to having various churches arise all over Asia Minor in the primitive world of two thousand years ago? Cults don't have a dozen congregations scattered around the world, not usually.You're describing a cult. I'm describing a young religion.

It's a failed messianic movement in that it didn't do what the founder intended.

Yeah. How could the movement do what Jesus intended if he didn't exist? You keep forgetting that. You assume that an actual Jesus walked around preaching a particular theology.

But I see things differently.

 

[technomage]

I don't understand. Why is gJohn independent but the BOM isn't independent? Are you thinking that John never heard of the synoptics or of Paul's letters? If so, why do you make the assumption that Joseph Smith had the synoptics in front of him but that John didn't?

In textural criticism, "independent" simply means "This author didn't copy from other authors." Joseph Smith copied repeatedly (and copiously) from the KJV. GoJohn doesn't copy from any of the other sources, thus it is independent. (There are also sources like the Egerton Gospel, which may be parallel to but still independent of GoJohn, but frankly I don't know enough about it to comment one way or another.)

As for gThomas, I repeat the question which you declined to answer from my last message: Isn't it entirely plausible that the saying from gThomas were already drifting around that area and that someone just pasted 'Jesus said' onto them? If not, why not?

"Plausibility" is too subjective, and too dependent upon presuppositions. If one presupposes that there is a God who sent his Son, then it's plausible that (as Christians claim) the Gospels were inspired by God. Obviously, I don't accept those presuppositions, so I don't come to that conclusion. We have to follow the evidence, and thus far, the only evidence is that these sayings are attributed to Jesus. (GoThom also includes references to named people, such as Simon Peter, James "the Just," Matthew, Thomas, and John the Baptist.)

And I thought you agreed that Paul didn't speak of a 30CE Jesus, so I'm not sure why you are including him in your list as evidence of an HJ.

I agreed that Paul only briefly referenced a living Jesus.

I also find it curious that you list 'the synoptics' rather than 'gMark.' If gMatt and gLuke are revisions, surely you don't count them as independent sources for Jesus?

I list the _traditions_, AG. Taken together, the synoptics are a tradition.

It seems so curious to me that Historical Jesusers (HJers) accept 'ancient' historians as relevant to the HJ but discount historians writing in 1952. Where do we draw the line between historians-who-actually-knew-something and historians-just-writing-their-take-on-history?

Kind of a non-sequiter to my argument.

From a literary/fiction angle, the crucifixion is the most likely event to be added to the tale. Crucified saviors are sprinkled all around during those times, aren't they?

Actually, no--they are not. Feel free to cite arguments to the contrary, but I'd be cautious of anything by Kersey Graves--even Richard Carrier rejects Graves's arguments.

I don't know what you mean, but there's an historian who just put out a book claiming that in 1965, a magic-doing godman lived in the Amazon and worked many miracles among the natives there.

Go ahead and cite the book, and we'll examine the claims.

But you must realize that uninformed opinions mean nothing in historical research.

Hoo boy, you ate your Wheaties this morning, didn't you?

The existing text of gMark doesn't have it, but I find it hard to believe that he left that bit off when he wrote it.

Again, we have to follow the evidence. We have several manuscripts--ALL of the early ones--that just up and end at v. 8. The women run away. End of story.

You're going to have to explain something to me, a critical question: If Jesus was unnoticed in Jerusalem during his own lifetime, as you seem to agree, what exactly made everyone suddenly begin to worship him and organize a religion around him?

It wasn't "everybody." Like Wicca, it started out slow. Unlike Wicca, however, there were already several sympathetic groups, and a fairly fertile pool of potential believers.
* Certain sects of the Jews were sympathetic to the message being taught. There were already some groups, like the Essenes, who were talking about how the poor were going to be rich, and the rich were going to be poor. (It's a fairly common "underdog" trope.)
* The "underclass" among the Romans would buy into that message.
* The similarity to the Greek "Mystery Religions," without their expense and exclusivity, made for a large pool of people who would be potentially interested.

Also, at least at first, they could use the Jewish social and religious infrastructure. Up until around 90 CE, they could meet in the synagogues, try to persuade other worshippers that "Hey, this isn't a new religion, we worship the same God." Kind of like the Baha'i situation within Islam ... that is, until Islam started killing Baha'i.

Several dozen members? And you think that compares to having various churches arise all over Asia Minor in the primitive world of two thousand years ago? Cults don't have a dozen congregations scattered around the world, not usually.You're describing a cult. I'm describing a young religion.

A "young religion" is nothing more than a cult that gets a tax writeoff.

You assume that an actual Jesus walked around preaching a particular theology.

Actually, I'm responding to the evidence, rather than assuming a conclusion with no evidence to support it.

Which comes down to the crux of the issue. I've done a lot of snipping because fundamentally, you're repeating yourself. So far, AG, you've offered negative evidence--reasons why you don't count certain sources as worthy of consideration, and a bare assertion of "It's fiction." So let's see what _positive_ evidence to support your contention.

Specific questions I'd like you to answer:

* What traits does GoMark share with Judean, Greek, and/or Roman fiction?
* What traits does it NOT share, and why?
* Can you think of any other examples of the proposed "Gospel fiction" genre that do not involve Christianity?
* In Judean, Greek, and Roman fiction, the purpose was to entertain: obviously, Mark did not share this purpose: his purpose was didactic, to teach specific things. Why do you feel Mark used the genre of fiction for a didactic task?

 

[AmbiguousGuy]

In textural criticism, "independent" simply means "This author didn't copy from other authors." Joseph Smith copied repeatedly (and copiously) from the KJV. GoJohn doesn't copy from any of the other sources, thus it is independent.

OK, then pick another. There are hundreds of gospels, more of them being written every day (though they've lost out in popularity now to vampire tales.) I looked at the Wiki list awhile back and I think the latest gospel was penned in 1996. So I'm curious why you listed gJohn as an independent source of the historical Jesus but ignored all the others.

Do you have some kind of cutoff point -- like 100 years after the 30CE Jesus -- where you reject any further gospels as non-historical?

Or do you accept gJohn simply because it is canonical -- stamped with approval at some point by mankind's authorities?

We have to follow the evidence, and thus far, the only evidence is that these sayings are attributed to Jesus.

Yes, everyone agrees that they are attributed to Jesus. Are you sure that you are following my argumentation?

It's normal human behavior to ascribe memorable quotes to the most famous guy around. In ancient times, I'm sure it was even more common. Do you disagree?

So gThomas adds nothing at all to the question of a historical Jesus from 30CE.

I list the _traditions_, AG. Taken together, the synoptics are a tradition.

Oh, sure. The gospel-writing tradition. It was apparently a cottage industry back then. Everybody thought they could tell the Jesus story better than the next guy. They're still doing it today.

Go ahead and cite the book, and we'll examine the claims.

Whether you're serious or not, I can't tell, but I'm pretty sure our readers took my point about the modern historian writing of a 50-year-ago godman.

And they may also notice that you decline to answer my questions about it. That you decline to say whether you'd accept him as authoritative about the Amazonian godman.

So I'll answer for you, or at least for most HJ apologists: You wouldn't trust a historian today writing about an Amazonian godman from 1965, but you think it's proper to trust ancient historians writing about a godman 50 years before their time.

As I say, many of us are slave to our ancestors' assumptions. Me, I'm pretty much immune to that.

Hoo boy, you ate your Wheaties this morning, didn't you?

I give tit for tat. Write me arrogance and you'll receive (faux) arrogance in return. It's just something I do for fun and to convince my debate partner to stop with the arrogance. I make it bite a little every time he does it.

* Certain sects of the Jews were sympathetic to the message being taught. There were already some groups, like the Essenes, who were talking about how the poor were going to be rich, and the rich were going to be poor. (It's a fairly common "underdog" trope.)

* The "underclass" among the Romans would buy into that message.
* The similarity to the Greek "Mystery Religions," without their expense and exclusivity, made for a large pool of people who would be potentially interested.

So you're saying that Christianity exploded from zero to many churches in foreign places -- in an amazingly-short period of time -- based simply on Jesus teaching some stuff that was already being taught? All those churches in Asia Minor, so very soon after 30 CE?

Can you point me to any other religion that grew so quickly based on a single man's teachings?

No, the best explanation is that the churches already existed when Jesus is purported to have walked the earth. They probably started before 0 CE.

Paul wrote letters to those churches, knowing nothing of a 30CE Jesus.

Mark later backwrote Jesus into 30 CE Jerusalem, starting a gospel-writing frenzy.

That makes most sense, trust me.

A "young religion" is nothing more than a cult that gets a tax writeoff.

Glib answers, in place of serious answers, are kinda fun. But they don't help a debate move forward.

Actually, I'm responding to the evidence, rather than assuming a conclusion with no evidence to support it.

No. I'm sorry, but you're assuming a conclusion despite the evidence. The evidence is against a 30CE Jesus. Jesus most likely didn't exist then.

So far, AG, you've offered negative evidence--reasons why you don't count certain sources as worthy of consideration, and a bare assertion of "It's fiction." So let's see what _positive_ evidence to support your contention.

Goodness. I'm such a terrible debater, eh?

If only you'd put as much attention into actually answering my points as you put into explaining my flaws as a debater....

* What traits does GoMark share with Judean, Greek, and/or Roman fiction?

Beats me. Why? Have I given you the impression that I'm interested in fiction from those times?

Don't cloud your mind with that sort of minutia, is my advice -- not if you want to think clearly about the historical Jesus. Instead, spend your time trying to understand the human heart, what motivates people, how people trick themselves. Stuff like that will help you discern the truth here way moreso than reading stuffy, biased, biblical scholars.

* Can you think of any other examples of the proposed "Gospel fiction" genre that do not involve Christianity?

No. And thank you for making my point. Christianity's great success is directly due to the genius of Mark's gospel fiction!

No other religion has it!

I'm so happy that you are seeing it. Some people never do.

* In Judean, Greek, and Roman fiction, the purpose was to entertain: obviously, Mark did not share this purpose: his purpose was didactic, to teach specific things. Why do you feel Mark used the genre of fiction for a didactic task?

What are you talking about? Who told you that Mark wasn't trying to entertain?

 

[technomage]

I give tit for tat. Write me arrogance and you'll receive (faux) arrogance in return.

I think we have the crux of the issue tight here.

AG, I do not listen to metal music. I've heard a few things in passing, but I've never been interested in the genre, never learned anything about it, don't know the names of the groups, and have no clue what role they play in the overall market.
How much would my uninformed opinion count in a discussion of the merits of various metal bands?

Would it be considered "arrogant" if someone called me ignorant about metal music?

You yourself have said you don't read the history of that period. You're not familiar with the text. You're not even interested in the body of comparative literature. And yet you think I'm "arrogant" for pointing out that your opinion in the area of Biblical criticism is uninformed?

You have opinions ... well, sure. Everybody does. But by your own statements, your opinions _are_ uninformed. You're in the same boat I would be in if I tried to debate the merits of metal music.

As I said earlier AG, uninformed opinions mean nothing in historical research. Nothing.

Now, we can do this one of three ways. We can keep yabbering back and forth with you holding to your uninformed opinion, and get nowhere. We can drop the discussion here. Or you can trade in your uninformed opinion for an informed one.

Having an informed opinion may not change your mind. But at least you'll know what you're talking about.

And no, that's NOT an insult, any more than calling me ignorant about metal music is an insult. I AM ignorant about metal. I can still express my opinions about slayer v. Pantera all I want to, but my ignorance shows through.

 

[AmbiguousGuy]

I think we have the crux of the issue tight here.

AG, I do not listen to metal music. I've heard a few things in passing, but I've never been interested in the genre, never learned anything about it, don't know the names of the groups, and have no clue what role they play in the overall market.
How much would my uninformed opinion count in a discussion of the merits of various metal bands?

Would it be considered "arrogant" if someone called me ignorant about metal music?

No, I don't think so.

You yourself have said you don't read the history of that period.

No. You're confused. Mixed up. How could I be out-arguing you about these historical matters if I didn't know any of the history?

You're not familiar with the text.

How curious. So far as I can see, I'm more familiar with it than you are. And please don't take that as an insult. I'm just saying.

You're not even interested in the body of comparative literature.

Right. It's because I have a deep background in literature and I know how people can get confused when they begin thinking of genre and such in serious ways. So I tend to avoid that. It's why I'm so clear-minded on the issue.

Not only that, but literary genre has absolutely nothing to do with my arguments, as I've explained to you. So why are you trying to discuss comparative literature? It seems the tactic of one who wants to escape into his own narrow field of study. I'm sorry, but that's how it seems to me.

And yet you think I'm "arrogant" for pointing out that your opinion in the area of Biblical criticism is uninformed?

OK. If you weren't being arrogant, then neither was I. Let's leave it aside.

You have opinions ... well, sure. Everybody does. But by your own statements, your opinions _are_ uninformed. You're in the same boat I would be in if I tried to debate the merits of metal music.

I'm sorry but that really is nonsense. If you know what you're talking about, please go ahead and demonstrate it rather than simply asserting your superior knowledge. Stop dodging my direct question and points. Address them. Counter them if you can.

Proof's in the pudding, as we say.

As I said earlier AG, uninformed opinions mean nothing in historical research. Nothing.

I disagree. No matter how uninformed your opinions seem to me, I try to respect them and help you become better informed. But people do say that my sense of noblesse oblige is over-developed, so....

Now, we can do this one of three ways. We can keep yabbering back and forth with you holding to your uninformed opinion, and get nowhere. We can drop the discussion here. Or you can trade in your uninformed opinion for an informed one.

You can actually address the issues and arguments which I've presented and drop this (rather crude) appeal to authority. Or else we can stop here. I'll have to leave that to you.

Having an informed opinion may not change your mind. But at least you'll know what you're talking about.

Address the issues I've raised. Try to counter them.

Or not. As you please.

 

[technomage]

Not only that, but literary genre has absolutely nothing to do with my arguments, as I've explained to you.

AG, if you're arguing "GoMark is fiction," you're arguing genre. There's no way to evade that.

Why would you argue a particular point, and then say the point has nthing to do with your arguments?

 

[AmbiguousGuy]

AG, if you're arguing "GoMark is fiction," you're arguing genre. There's no way to evade that.

Why would you argue a particular point, and then say the point has nthing to do with your arguments?

I've made no such statement. But I did explain why genre is unimportant to my argument. You ignored that explanation, so I'll present it again here and expand a bit.

Mark was not a genre-slave. He was a genre-creator. He wrote a new type of literature, which we now call the 'gospel' genre. In this type of literature, one writes the story of the Christ as if he had lived in 30CE Jerusalem.

Is there something about this explanation which you don't understand?

By the way 'genre' is an English word. A word concocted to try and sort things out, as Adam tried to make sense of the plants and animals in the garden. So it is artificial. It's a map, not the territory. Please don't believe in genre as if it is a real thing. That is a fundamental error of thought.

Let me show you this using an example from your earlier message in which you made a similar error of thought, and error which is somewhat common among scholars and students of textual criticism -- at least in my observation.

Here’s what you argued:In Judean, Greek, and Roman fiction, the purpose was to entertain: obviously, Mark did not share this purpose: his purpose was didactic, to teach specific things. Why do you feel Mark used the genre of fiction for a didactic task?

Your error of thought was in assuming that a piece of writing can have only one purpose... either entertainment or instruction. If one, then not the other.

But of course that is just the passion of an Adamish scholar to neatly divide reality into This part vs. That part. It certainly isn’t the case in real life. Here on this forum, for example, I write entertaining messages in the hope that people will read them and therefore be more likely to learn what those messages contain. Most every writer does that. There is no such thing as either writing 1) to entertain or else 2) to teach.

It’s just one small example, but I hope you’ll think about it.

In my serious and humble view, those who study ancient texts are pretty much bound to become entangled in such thought. One must learn the vocabulary of the field, and learning it tends to make one accept it as real somehow.

It's one reason why a powerful rational thinker is better positioned to analyze the HJ question than are most biblical scholars. He's free of such rigid, compartmentalized thought.

Anyway, I hope you'll go ahead and address my last message and its powerful arguments against your position. I think it would be so much nicer to engage the actual issue itself.

I'll bet our readers would be both entertained and educated by it.

 

[technomage]

I've made no such statement.

"Instead, they (the other Gospels) are revisions of Mark's original and probably-fictional story. "

Yes, AG, you did. And it is at this point that I am beginning to wonder if you are engaged in honest debate, or simply playing a shell game for fun.

 

[AmbiguousGuy]

"Instead, they (the other Gospels) are revisions of Mark's original and probably-fictional story. "

Yes, AG, you did.

You seem confused. You offer one of my statements and seem to imply that it is evidence of something, though you don't say what.

I guess I'm feeling pretty sure that my arguments have intimidated you and that you'd rather stop the debate now.

Don't feel ashamed. Defending the HJ position really is just impossible, I think.

But thanks for the effort which you made early in our exchange.

 

[technomage]

AG, I do not debate to "win." I debate to offer my insights, and to learn.

I cannot learn from dishonest debate. And when you make a statement, then less than ten posts later say "I made no such statement," that is not honest debate.

 

[AmbiguousGuy]

AG, I do not debate to "win." I debate to offer my insights, and to learn.

Of course you do. I'm sure you are the holiest of men, Techno.

Should you ever feel ready to re-engage the historical-Jesus debate, my Message #11 is still there, its arguments unanswered.

I look forward to your readiness to continue.

 

[technomage]

No, I don't think so.



No. You're confused. Mixed up. How could I be out-arguing you about these historical matters if I didn't know any of the history?



How curious. So far as I can see, I'm more familiar with it than you are. And please don't take that as an insult. I'm just saying.



Right. It's because I have a deep background in literature and I know how people can get confused when they begin thinking of genre and such in serious ways. So I tend to avoid that. It's why I'm so clear-minded on the issue.

Not only that, but literary genre has absolutely nothing to do with my arguments, as I've explained to you. So why are you trying to discuss comparative literature? It seems the tactic of one who wants to escape into his own narrow field of study. I'm sorry, but that's how it seems to me.



OK. If you weren't being arrogant, then neither was I. Let's leave it aside.



I'm sorry but that really is nonsense. If you know what you're talking about, please go ahead and demonstrate it rather than simply asserting your superior knowledge. Stop dodging my direct question and points. Address them. Counter them if you can.

Proof's in the pudding, as we say.



I disagree. No matter how uninformed your opinions seem to me, I try to respect them and help you become better informed. But people do say that my sense of noblesse oblige is over-developed, so....



You can actually address the issues and arguments which I've presented and drop this (rather crude) appeal to authority. Or else we can stop here. I'll have to leave that to you.



Address the issues I've raised. Try to counter them.

Or not. As you please.

There is no substantive issue, evidence, or objection raised here. Assertions of your supposed superiority are _all this post consists of_.

And that, also, is dishonest debate.

AG, I do not debate with those who act dishonestly. I generally avoid interacting with them at all.

If you ever choose to actually tackle the issues instead of making empty claims of "I win," please have someone advise me. Until that time, I have no interest in interacting with you in any format.

 

[AmbiguousGuy]

There is no substantive issue, evidence, or objection raised here. Assertions of your supposed superiority are _all this post consists of_.

I meant Message #9, of course. The spot in our debate where you apparently began to feel overwhelmed by my arguments and began to attack me personally rather than addressing the issues.

AG, I do not debate with those who act dishonestly. I generally avoid interacting with them at all.

You've been debating dishonestly since we started. I've tried my best to ignore it, and I sure haven't used it as an excuse to flee the debate.

Message #9. Answer it if you can and let's get back to the historical Jesus. Stop the personal insults. Answer my last message about the historical Jesus.