120 Reasons to Reject Christianity

[DBT]

Why, oh, why must these walls of text be continued? Why not deal with just one or two key points at a time?

 

[funinspace]

Why, oh, why must these walls of text be continued? Why not deal with just one or two key points at a time?

Clearly, it is part of the Art of Obfuscation...

 

[Brian63]

Does anyone know anything about Lumpen's current lifestyle, or his background? I wonder if he is retired and spends a huge chunk of his free time writing up these walls-of-shit, or if he is on the job but not working while he writes up the walls-of-shit, or if he copy-and-pastes the walls-of-shit from somewhere else and then just edits and customizes them in his posts here. [Is Lumpen even male in the first place, or female?]

Is this a new habit for Lumpen that he just started doing, or a behavior he has done all the time he has been a poster on this board, or other.

Have Lumpen and Ramaraksha ever debated each other on various theological issues? Actually, I think I would enjoy reading that...for a couple minutes, anyway.

Brian

 

[Keith&Co.]

Here are some links [Walls of Text]

Oh. Okay, then. So, that answers THAT question.
No, Lumpy does not know what a 'wall of text' post is. This might explain why he brags about walls of text coming in future posts, or why he thinks criticizing his WoT is a 'crybaby' move. And why he thinks lists of on-point links constitutes such a wall.

::sigh::

 

[abaddon]

Which paragraph (that you probably didn't read) did you find a problem with?

All of 'em.

There's no good reason all the paragraphs must have been read.

 

[Iznomneak]

I've been skimming this thread for a while, but don't bother reading the walls of text either. I'd be curious if *anyone* reads these.

Maybe let this thread die (or lock) and start new threads addressing the distinct major points.

 

[T.G.G. Moogly]

Does anyone know anything about Lumpen's current lifestyle, or his background? I wonder if he is retired and spends a huge chunk of his free time writing up these walls-of-shit, or if he is on the job but not working while he writes up the walls-of-shit, or if he copy-and-pastes the walls-of-shit from somewhere else and then just edits and customizes them in his posts here. [Is Lumpen even male in the first place, or female?]

Is this a new habit for Lumpen that he just started doing, or a behavior he has done all the time he has been a poster on this board, or other.

Have Lumpen and Ramaraksha ever debated each other on various theological issues? Actually, I think I would enjoy reading that...for a couple minutes, anyway.

Brian

He's like 19th century oratory where you get to drone on for a couple hours and then enjoy your ovation. He's also like a debater where the debate is scored on how well you debated, not on what you said. You didn't have to jump the farthest or run the fastest, you can win on style points. He's a bit of an anachronism in this regard where substance doesn't matter more than presentation.

 

[lpetrich]

Brian63, I think that it is inappropriate to speculate about Lumpen himself (herself?), though I must note that Lumpen has a very similar posting style in Political Discussions.

It also ought to be easy to check for plagiarism -- search for similar documents online. But it may be Lumpen posting his posts elsewhere.

 

[Brian63]

Point(s) taken.

Brian

 

[Keith&Co.]

Maybe let this thread die (or lock) and start new threads addressing the distinct major points.

Meh.

This Thread was posted by someone wanting traffic at his website, and his list has grown rather absurdly large, with quite a bit of redundancy. he wasn't really open to discussion.

Lumpy intended to discuss each individual item on that list, and started off that way, but has been derailed by people pointing out the errors in his attempts to find errors in the original. He'll claim that something doesn't exist, people pony up examples, he then has to (about a year later) marginalize all the counter-examples, then people criticize his understanding of history, so he then has to fabricate historian criteria...

The major 'point' of the discussion is that Lumpy wants to live forever with the minimal amount of belief necessary to qualify, and he's locked onto Christainity on the idea that if he believes Jesus was the Christ he goes to Heaven. No behavioral modification necessary.
To that end, he'll invent any sort of justification necessary to hew to his existing belief.

Shifting this to a new thread willn't improve much of anything.

 

[funinspace]

Maybe let this thread die (or lock) and start new threads addressing the distinct major points.

Meh.

This Thread was posted by someone wanting traffic at his website, and his list has grown rather absurdly large, with quite a bit of redundancy. he wasn't really open to discussion.

Lumpy intended to discuss each individual item on that list, and started off that way, but has been derailed by people pointing out the errors in his attempts to find errors in the original. He'll claim that something doesn't exist, people pony up examples, he then has to (about a year later) marginalize all the counter-examples, then people criticize his understanding of history, so he then has to fabricate historian criteria...

The major 'point' of the discussion is that Lumpy wants to live forever with the minimal amount of belief necessary to qualify, and he's locked onto Christainity on the idea that if he believes Jesus was the Christ he goes to Heaven. No behavioral modification necessary.
To that end, he'll invent any sort of justification necessary to hew to his existing belief.

Shifting this to a new thread willn't improve much of anything.

Though "Christ as savior" is probably accurate to what Lumpy has stated, he doesn't seem to believe in Christ the son of God (aka Yahweh). He seems to suggest that he believes Jesus Christ is The God...full stop. And Yahweh, the Tanakh, and most everything outside of the Gospel's Jesus miracle tales are a trifle. Though it took a couple years to leach that out of him...

 

[bilby]

Maybe let this thread die (or lock) and start new threads addressing the distinct major points.

Meh.

This Thread was posted by someone wanting traffic at his website, and his list has grown rather absurdly large, with quite a bit of redundancy. he wasn't really open to discussion.

Lumpy intended to discuss each individual item on that list, and started off that way, but has been derailed by people pointing out the errors in his attempts to find errors in the original. He'll claim that something doesn't exist, people pony up examples, he then has to (about a year later) marginalize all the counter-examples, then people criticize his understanding of history, so he then has to fabricate historian criteria...

The major 'point' of the discussion is that Lumpy wants to live forever with the minimal amount of belief necessary to qualify, and he's locked onto Christainity on the idea that if he believes Jesus was the Christ he goes to Heaven. No behavioral modification necessary.
To that end, he'll invent any sort of justification necessary to hew to his existing belief.

Shifting this to a new thread willn't improve much of anything.

At the end of the day, moving, splitting and opening new threads is a mechanism to render the fora more readable for its users; By acting as a central location for these walls of text, the status quo meets that objective admirably. Those who wish to engage in the debate that this thread has become can do so; The rest of the denizens of TFT can easily and comfortably ignore it.

The OP having long since gone away, it seems pointless to start new threads, or lock the existing one, both of which would just risk contaminating a wider area of the site with pointless non-argument characterized by voluminous write-only documents.

Of course, if anyone has a particular point that they want to discuss in a new thread, then they should feel free to open a new thread for that purpose - but that is true regardless of where the inspiration for the new topic was found, whether it was in this thread, or anywhere else.

 

[lpetrich]

(continued from previous Wall of Text, which is a response to the below series of TEXT WALLS linked into this message board by Ipetrich, to whom all crybabies who hate WALLS OF TEXT should address their protests, unless someone knows a way to answer a Wall of Text without a similar Wall of Text, or unless someone thinks Ipetrich is a fool not worth responding to, in which case also he is the one to whom such complainers should address their whining about what a fool they think he is for linking these Walls of Text and thus provoking similar Walls of Text in response.)

Boo hoo hoo hoo hoo

(My links to Matthew Ferguson's arguments...)

There's no evidence in these links that the Jesus miracle stories are fictional. Rather, the methodology is to assign the Gospel accounts to a "genre" labeled as "fiction" (or "novelistic") and then declare "See, the Gospels must be fiction because they're in this fiction genre."

More like they resemble ancient books usually considered fictional rather than ancient books that contain careful historical research and that are usually considered good sources.

 

[Lumpenproletariat]

Josephus is FICTION, along with the Gospel accounts, and many other reliable sources, according to lpetrich/Ferguson.

• The Gospels use lots of direct speech (lpetrich said "I am writing a post") as opposed to indirect speech (lpetrich said that he is writing a post), making them much more like fictional works than like historical works.

No, Herodotus and Livy are historians who used many "direct" speech quotes, like the gospel accounts. Josephus, by contrast, avoids quoting characters. This is not about "fictional" vs. "historical" works, but . . .

Since no one has corrected me here, I'll do it myself.

Josephus does quote characters, using direct quotes, like most other authors. (I noticed a total absence of any quotes in the early chapters of the Jewish Wars, but now I see that's the exception for him.)

He does do such "direct" quoting elsewhere quite a bit, which refutes lpetrich's point (or Ferguson's) that the "historians" used mainly INdirect quotes rather than "DIRECT" quotes. Virtually ALL of them use far more DIRECT quotes than INdirect.

Also DIRECT quotes are in many other reliable sources like Cicero and Philo the Alexandrian and others. So the notion that DIRECT quotes are mainly from fictional sources is nonsense.

Also, Josephus never says the "signpost" language -- "He spoke words such as" and so on. Like the Gospels, Josephus just uses the simple "He said" like most other authors. So here too the Ferguson requirements put Josephus in the FICTION category, along with the Gospels, rather than in the "historical" category.

In fact, by Ferguson's criteria, 99% of the ancient literature is fiction, not just the Gospels. By his standard, probably Thucydides is the only ancient author who should be believed about anything. All other ancient literature has to be rejected as fiction.

 

[Shake]

By the way, that's a lowercase "L" not an uppercase "I". So in all caps in would be "LPETRICH" not "IPETRICH".

 

[T.G.G. Moogly]

By the way, that's a lowercase "L" not an uppercase "I". So in all caps in would be "LPETRICH" not "IPETRICH".

You have to be an old-timer to know that.

 

[Shake]

By the way, that's a lowercase "L" not an uppercase "I". So in all caps in would be "LPETRICH" not "IPETRICH".

You have to be an old-timer to know that.

Ayup. Looks like I got you by 2 months.

 

[Lumpenproletariat]

Do the Gospels belong in a "GENRE" of literature which makes them necessarily FICTION?

(continued from previous not-long-enough Wall of Text)

Here are some links on what the Gospels have in common with various works from antiquity nowadays considered fictional.

But WHAT "various works"? The ones indicated in these links are virtually EVERYTHING OTHER THAN THUCYDIDES. The "various works" described here by our scholar include even most of the "historical" works -- minus Thucydides and perhaps a couple others -- as the only ones NOT among these "various works." These "various works . . . considered fictional" necessarily include Cicero and Philo of Alexandria and Josephus and Herodotus and many other respected sources for the ancient historical events. So, in order to hammer the Gospels into this "fictional" category, this group of works "considered fictional" ends up including even Cicero and Josephus and many other legitimate sources here labeled "fictional."

And even if we include some other "historians" along with Thucydides in the non-fiction category, virtually all the ancient writers go into the "fictional" category, based on these narrow standards, i.e., respectable sources like Herodotus and Livy and others who do not follow the strict standards of Thucydides. So this is how the Gospels end up in this "fictional" category, or get described as being "in common" with works "considered fictional" -- they end up in this category because this "fictional" category is defined to include virtually ANYthing other than Thucydides. Almost no other writers followed the strict Thucydides standards, and so they're in this "fictional" category having in it not only the Gospels, but everything not Thucydides.

And so the circular logic: anything in the "fictional" category has to be fiction because it is in that category or "genre" of literature. I.e., it is fiction because we assign it to the fiction "genre" and then preach that it must be fiction because of its assignment to that "genre" -- and this "genre" ends up having virtually everything in it other than Thucydides, who is the only one not in this "fictional" category.

E.g., the first link below could just as well be titled: Ancient Historical Writing Compared to Anything other than Thucydides. Because "Anything other than Thucydides" pretty much fits the description here of the "Gospels of the New Testament" category. We're still in this first link, resuming with #7 of Ferguson's 10 "relevant areas of distinction" between "historical" works and what he calls "fictional" works:

Ancient Ancient Historical Writing Compared to the Gospels of the New Testament | Κέλσος
The Certamen of Homer and Hesiod and the Gospels: Some Comparanda | Κέλσος
Lawrence Wills: “The Life of Aesop and the Hero Cult Paradigm in the Gospel Tradition” | Κέλσος
Are the Gospels Ancient Biographies?: The Spectrum of Ancient Βίοι | Κέλσος
Greek Popular Biography: Romance, Contest, Gospel | Κέλσος
Patterns of Myth-Making Between the Lives of Alexander the Great and Jesus Christ | Κέλσος
 Ancient Greek novel

There's no evidence in these links that the Jesus miracle stories are fictional. Rather, the methodology is to assign the Gospel accounts to a "genre" labeled as "fiction" (or "novelistic") and then declare "See, the Gospels must be fiction because they're in this fiction genre."


What "GENRE" of ancient literature do the Gospels really belong to?

• Any document of this "genre" relates historical events, reported as factual, which are placed into a historical time frame and into the events of that time, despite whether intermixed with fictional or religious or propaganda elements.

• The document was written near to the time of the events, not several centuries later.

• The document is short, by comparison to mainline historical writings, and focused on one special event or limited range of events rather than treating history broadly.

So you want to put the Gospels into a category ("genre") of literature? The above is it -- whatever fits the above description are the "works from antiquity" which the Gospels have something "in common with" for doing a comparison. So, find such works and do the comparison.

But the above literature type, which the Gospel writings belong to, is ignored by Matthew Ferguson, throughout these links, while he instead places the Gospels artificially into some "fiction" category based on supposed literary-style similarities between them and literature in that category; and from this we're supposed to designate the Gospels as fiction, on the rationale that they must be because they're in that category, as decreed by the established scholars.

The ways in which the Gospels diverge from and fall short of the historical writing of their time are perhaps too numerous to exhaustively treat here, but I will discuss ten relevant areas of distinction that are helpful for understanding how historical writing is different. . . .

7. A Greater Degree of Authorial License

When I discuss how ancient historians and historical biographers are far more prone to cite their sources, note contradictions between traditions, interject authorial judgements, and signpost speculation, . . .

But wait -- not ALL the historians did this.

And of those who did, such citings, notings, interjectings, and signpostings are RARE in their writings, not frequent, and usually they did not do it even when they could have. And meanwhile, a far greater number of the ancient authors did NOT cite their sources, note contradictions, interject authorial judgments, and signpost speculation. Or almost never did.

So the Gospel writers are in the MAINSTREAM of the ancient authors, by not citing sources, noting contradictions, interjecting and signposting, while those historians who did do these are the exception. So the Gospel writers were the NORM among the ancient writers, who are generally credible for information on the historical events, even though not in the professional "historian" category, which is a minority of the ancient authors. The more numerous NON-"historian" writers are also reliable sources for history, and are in the same category as the Gospels rather than in the Thucydides category.

It is not true that only the official "historian" writers like Thucydides are relied upon for historical events, or that only they are credible. One drawback with these mainline "historians" is that they restricted their writings to reporting on only the major political and military events and on only the rich and powerful elite, which are not all of history, even if they are the most recognized part. The NON-"historians" are also credible sources of information -- that they don't enjoy the same recognition as the higher-status official "historians" does not put them in some "fictional" category with no credibility.

. . . one impression that I do not wish to create is that they still did not take a great amount of creative liberties in fashioning their narratives. The standards for what constituted historical writing in antiquity were very different from those that are used today in professional historiography. Ancient historians like Tacitus, for example, frequently imagined the speeches given at key sections of the narrative, and likewise characterized their historical subjects in ways that are highly dramatic and conjectural. In fact, Classicist Holly Haynes in the The History of Make-Believe: Tacitus on Imperial Rome has even described many of Tacitus’ literary techniques as “make-believe.”

Note this dichotomy between the higher-class "historical" category, which it's OK to believe, vs. the "fiction" and "make-believe" and "lying" category, which we're told is more prevalent in the Gospels, but not absent from historians like Tacitus. How do we know the difference? How do we spot the "make-believe" category?

As Haynes (pg. 28) explains:

The inescapable and regrettable fact about ancient historians, according to much of the scholarship, is that they made things up. By “making things up,” we commonly mean “falsifying” or even “lying,” both of which are antithetical to the scholar of ancient history and his or her project of arriving at the truest possible account of the past. Speaking generally, this view is prevalent throughout the scholarship of ancient history and historiography alike, as the latter does little to combat the dyarchic structure of words and deeds embedded in the discourse of the study of antiquity. Rather, the emerging discipline of historiography has emphasized the rhetorical richness of ancient history [and has] urged us to view the “make-believe” in its own right…

While this proviso can be made about historians like Tacitus, however, it should be noted that it applies to a far greater extent in the case of the Gospels.

What applies to a greater extent? "making things up"? "make-believe" and "lying" and "falsifying"? What is the indication of this in the Gospels? i.e., what's the reason for saying there's more "making things up" or "make-believe" in the Gospels? Where in the Gospels do we see this "make-believe" and "lying" etc.?

As previously discussed, the authors of the Gospels do not even signpost speculation, . . .

What does this have to do with "make-believe" or "making things up"? Hardly any ancient authors did this signposting. If the Gospels are "make-believe" because they don't do this, then so are 99% of all the ancient writings.

To "signpost" the speculation was rare, untypical in even the historical writings, because it would have been inappropriate and an unnecessary distraction. Just because a few historians used phrases like δοκεῖ μοι (“it seems to me”) or ἔλεγε τοιάδε (“he spoke words like these”) does not make this a requirement for historians or other writers as a condition for credibility. The absence of this does not put the writing into the "make-believe" or "making things up" or "falsifying" or dishonest category.

Why should we expect the Gospels to use such "signpost" phrases? Where should the Gospel writers have used such phrases in the text? What's dishonest about not using such unnecessary phrases which most ancient writers did not use? Even the historical writings do not use such phrases 99% of the time, in places where it could be used.

What's an example, in the Gospel text, where such phrases should have been used or it was dishonest not to use them? Ferguson thinks he's critiquing the Gospels for some flaw here, but it's not a flaw that the writers never said "he spoke words like these" or "it seems to me" -- there's no reason or imperative to use such phrases, and almost all the ancient writings don't use them. Just because some historical writings did this perhaps .01% of the time does not mean the Gospel writers should have done it in order to establish their credibility.

These "signposts" are not a requirement in order for a document to be credible as a source for historical events. Absence of these does not put the writing into a "make-believe" category or mean the writer is "falsifying" and "lying" as Ferguson is saying. He gives no reason why they should be required or why documents lacking these are guilty of "falsifying" and should be disbelieved.

. . . nor do they cite or analyze their historical sources.

But who did cite or analyze, other than a tiny elite group of historians? The vast majority of the ancient literature does not cite or analyze sources. Even the historical documents fail to do this for most of their facts. All that can be shown is that in most of them, or the most prolific historians, there is a section discussing sources, usually apart from the factual narrative -- and not sources for ALL the information but only for a small fraction of it. The vast majority of the facts from the historians are given without citing or analyzing the sources for them.

The vast amount of the ancient literature, which omits any such citations or analysis, is not thereby "make-believe" or dishonest. How does Ferguson arrive at his outbursts about "make-believe" and "making things up" and "falsifying" in the Gospels or other documents not having such analysis? which are the vast majority of the literature? and which analytical content is rare even in the documents which do include it?

You can always wish we had more complete information on the events of 1000 or 2000 years ago, or better documentation in the writings, more citations and analyzing, but that doesn't mean 90% of the ancient authors, who lacked such citings and analyzings, were "making things up" and "lying" or that our imperfect documents are "make-believe" or fiction or unreliable as sources, as Ferguson falsely implies.

Likewise, the Gospels include many more instances of direct speech and dramatic dialogues in their narratives, . . .

So? How "many more instances" is a writer allowed before he turns into a liar? What turns the writing into "make-believe" simply because it has more of this "direct speech and dramatic dialogue"?

Cicero and Herodotus used "direct speech" and "dramatic dialogue" -- so were they "making things up" or writing "make-believe"? Or, is it that they obeyed some maximum-allowed LIMIT placed on this, like a quota, like so many infractions which are allowed -- like 3 or 4 per 10,000 words? Who set this quota or enforces it against transgressors who exceed the limit?

There may be more of such quotings in the Gospels, but who's drawing the line saying what the scientific limit is on these beyond which the writer must be lying? Is there a certain percent of "dramatic dialogue" allowed, beyond which a referee somewhere blows a whistle and calls "Foul!"?

How do these instances of "direct speech" and "dramatic dialogues" make a document less credible? We're not idiots -- we know the ancient writer quoting someone probably did not really have the exact words of the speaker and so had to paraphrase him. How does that undermine the credibility and turn most of our ancient writings into "make-believe"? We assume it's not word-for-word correct -- only an approximation of what the speaker said. Why does that mean we should not believe the account generally?


Does "more direct speech and dramatic dialogues" mean more "make-believe"?

When Herodotus has Xerxes being warned against his campaign into Greece, followed by a philosophical "debate" about war, is this "fiction" or "lying" or "make-believe" because it's Herodotus putting words into the mouths of the debaters? Possibly he added more to the thinking of the original speaker, making the character sound more philosophical than the original historical person actually was. So Herodotus is "falsifying" or "lying"?

Most other historians also did this, and thus the Gospels are just following the norm for historians, while the more strict standards of Thucydides are not the norm. It's reasonable to believe the historians generally, even though the norm for them was to NOT do these signposts, or to do them only very seldom.

That there are "more instances of direct speech and dramatic dialogues" in a source does not mean the author is "falsifying" or that his text is in a "make-believe" category to which Ferguson would downgrade it. Maybe the Gospels have more of this quoting than normal, but if we generally trust Herodotus and others who do this, why should another document doing the same be condemned as "make-believe" only because it does this more frequently?


Was Herodotus "just a storyteller"?

One rebuttal to this is to simply reject Herodotus (and others?) as just storytellers, and insist that only Thucydides has any credibility. E.g.:

Your argument is that if historians accept Herodotus (for an example) they ought to accept the accounts of Jesus's miracles. But they accept neither.

Most historians do accept them, with the normal doubt/critical scrutiny, setting aside the miracles as doubtful.

Herodotus is widely recognized as having included many hard-to-believe things in his "Histories" so nobody accepts his writings as a whole as historical.

If that were true, we'd have to scrap our standard history for the Persian Wars, which comes mostly from Herodotus. He is mostly accepted, while the "hard-to-believe" parts are set aside as doubtful.

Even Thucydides rejected him as "just a storyteller" . . . etc. (end of abaddon quote)

But he mostly accepted Herodotus, and even relied on him.

The point is: If one accepts Herodotus and other sources generally, with reasonable scrutiny and doubting, one can also accept the Gospels the same way, questioning the doubtful parts; and thus one can reasonably believe the miracle stories, because of the multiple sources, though there is still uncertainty. But of course you can reject ALL the sources, or 99% of them, including the Gospels, which might not be as reliable as Thucydides. But reason does not require us to reject 99% of all the ancient literature (and thus most recorded history).

So it's reasonable to believe Herodotus generally, and most other sources, while the "direct speech" and "dramatic dialogues" quotes do not change this. And in the Gospels the greater number of such quotes do not undermine the general credibility, despite the problem of possible discrepancy as to the exact words. Rather, each credibility question is dealt with individually, regardless of the "direct speech" and "dramatic dialogue" quotes, even if the number of these is greater.

The particular quotes in the text might be doubted, but does this turn the rest of the writer's text into "make-believe"? An author like Herodotus or Josephus etc. who uses such quotes can be believed generally, while the precise words in the quotes are doubted, and likewise in the Gospels, where such quotes might be more numerous. In all cases such quotes are doubted as to the precise words, and yet the account generally is still just as credible. Those quotes don't make the account less credible, despite the "authorial license" and possible discrepancy. In fact usually the quotes INcrease -- don't decrease -- our knowledge of the characters and the events.

Where there are credibility questions it's because there is evidence or reason to disbelieve a part of the account, not because there's "direct speech and dramatic dialogues" somewhere in the text causing it to become "make-believe" or fiction.


Paranoia over "direct speech" and "dramatic dialogue" in the Gospels

Even when a document is judged less credible, how is it the "direct speech" or "dramatic dialogue" quotes which lead to this judgment? Every credibility question has to be addressed individually regardless whether there are such quotes. Even if there are NO "direct speech and dramatic dialogues" quotes at all in the text, we still have to question anything in the text which is doubtful or appears to go against the evidence.

So Ferguson's nonsensical point about "more direct speech and dramatic dialogues" tells us nothing about the credibility or the degree of "make-believe" or "falsifying" in the Gospel accounts -- or ANY accounts, many of which contain such quotes. Any credibility questions have to be addressed individually, regardless if there are such quotes in the text, for any ancient source, not just the Gospels.

With or without the "direct speech" and "dramatic dialogues" element, we know there are some credibility questions with the Gospel accounts, as with other writings. We need not take them as infallible or inerrant, but rather we must consider each case individually, to distinguish the fact from the fiction. This would be just as true if there was NO "direct speech" or "dramatic dialogues" in them at all.

So the presence of these quotes in the text is irrelevant to questions about possible "make-believe" or "falsifying" which might also be present somewhere. If such "make-believe" is suspected at some point, then we need to look at that, not gawk at some cases there of "direct speech" or "dramatic dialogues" like Ferguson is obsessed with.

Doubt about the precise wording in such quotes doesn't equate to "falsifying" or "make-believe" -- whether it's the Gospels or Herodotus or Thucydides. Even if the writer used ἔλεγε τοιάδε (“he spoke words like these”) there is still the same discrepancy problem or other doubts. The documents are still just as credible as sources for the events, regardless of such text. And when a particular document is faulty or deficient for credibility, it has nothing to do with the presence of these quoting texts, but with other indicators of the fact-vs.-fiction content.

If a children's storybook uses "direct speech" to narrate the election of George Washington as the first president, would that mean Washington's election as the first president is "make-believe"?

. . . which their authors must have frequently imagined and invented.

You could say the same of Herodotus and Josephus, who also used "direct speech" and "dramatic dialogues" and perhaps "invented" or "imagined" some of the speech they attributed to historical characters. It is speculation how much of it was "imagined and invented." And even Thucydides could have "imagined and invented" his quotes or speeches, despite his "signpost" language like "ἔλεγε τοιάδε," which is impressive but does not really prove his words are more precise than those of Herodotus who did not use such language.

This is especially true in John, where Jesus engages in long discourses, distinct from the short, formulaic sayings in the Synoptic Gospels, which critical scholars have long recognized are probably not authentic words spoken by Jesus.

Probably not, considering that he spoke Aramaic and not Greek. Rather than being his exact words, these texts are the closest we have to his actual sayings, believed to reflect what he said, or to be close most of the time, like the Xerxes quotes in Herodotus might be close to what Xerxes really said. But assuming there's some discrepancy, this doesn't mean Herodotus or the Gospels were "falsifying" or "lying" or that the accounts are "make-believe."

Though we suspect some possible discrepancy between the exact authentic words of the original speaker and the later texts quoting him, this is superficial and not really something we need a scholar to tell us about. What point is served by pointing out this possible discrepancy, which usually can't be measured as to how close it is to the authentic words? The same phenomenon is present in most of the ancient literature, from reliable sources we trust for historical events.

That Thucydides is more strict by qualifying his text with his "signpost" language, like δοκεῖ μοι (“it seems to me”) or ἔλεγε τοιάδε (“he spoke words like these”), doesn't change the fact that most historians and other legitimate writers do the same "direct speech" writing we see in the Gospels, without following the Thucydides example, and thus the Gospels are no more deficient than 99% of the ancient writings which also "fall short" of Thucydides and yet are generally credible as sources.

They can all be questioned individually for accuracy, but not dismissed simply because they lack the "signpost" language and other standards of Thucydides.


ALL ancient writings are in the tainted "FICTION" category -- except Thucydides.

Ferguson fails to tell us what distinguishes the Gospels as "fiction" from the non-fiction category. Unless "fiction" means anything but Thucydides.

What we were promised at the beginning was a "discussion of modern scholarship concerning the origin of the Gospels" and how these differ from legitimate "historical" writing. And what enlightenment are we getting so far from this "scholarship"? that the Gospels are not Thucydides, and that there might be a discrepancy between the quoted words in the text and the authentic words of the historical Jesus being quoted. How is he earning his Nobel Prize for Gospel-debunking by telling us something which is already so obvious to virtually everyone? This is the "modern scholarship concerning the origin of the Gospels"?

He supposedly gives us pointers distinguishing how the legitimate "historical" writings report history vs. how the Gospels report it. And yet this legitimate "historian" category ends up including almost no ancient writers other than Thucydides (and arguably 2 or 3 others), while the Gospel "genre" of literature is that of 99% of all the ancient literature, which does not follow the rigid standards of Thucydides (signposting, critical analysis, etc.).


"modern scholarship concerning the origin of the Gospels" = the latest poking fun at believers in biblical inerrancy

Of course the quoting discrepancy issue provides an occasion to poke fun at some Christians who take the text as inerrant and an exact reproduction of the original spoken words. And that's all -- this is the whole point, with nothing beyond the debunker's glee at ridiculing the ancient inerrancy tradition.

Of course there is a difficulty with that tradition -- i.e., that every sentence and word in the Bible has to be the truth, no matter what. This would also be a difficulty with any other document having such a tradition of inerrancy and infallibility attached to it -- do we need a credentialed scholar to explain something so superficial? We've always known of this discrepancy problem of the quotes in the ancient literature -- it's nothing new. What is "modern" about this "modern scholarship"?

The job of poking fun at this is more appropriately that of the late-night TV comedian rather than a scholar who should have something more than this to add to our knowledge.


What does it mean if Jesus quotes are not authentic?

Going beyond that to something serious would be to address the thoughtful question: Why did so many writers and others attribute their ideas to this one Jesus Christ figure and to no one else? Why was only this one person presented in writings as the Messiah or Son of God who is chosen by everyone as the mouthpiece for their teachings?

The best answer is that he actually did perform the miracle acts described in the accounts.

Without this conclusion, that he did the miracle acts, what explains why all the writers attributed their words to him and not to various other popular heroes or prophets? Why is there only this one Messiah cult legend and no others which anyone took seriously? no others reported in sources near to the time of the reported events?

Only one Christ, but multiple conflicting factions of believers: There's only this one, even though the reports of him originate from conflicting cults or factions, all converging onto him, but from different directions, often in conflict with each other. How did they all choose this one and not separate Messiah figures?

Just one conspicuous example: why did Paul, differing sharply from Peter and James, choose the same Christ they believed in, and the same Christ followed by the Christians he had earlier persecuted? (Gal. ch. 1-2) The differences were sharp enough that it would make more sense for factions like these to choose separate Messiah heroes rather than the same person.

And there were many other divisions/factions not so obvious as these.

Meanwhile the few mentions here and there of messiah-pretenders or charlatans, etc., such as described in Josephus, are never taken seriously -- no one left any written accounts of them, and even what little report we have in this or that case never says the alleged miracle really happened or was believed by anyone.

If you refuse to address the WHY ONLY THIS ONE reasonable question, you have no credible theory about the origins of the Gospels and the early Christ belief. The "modern scholarship concerning the origin of the Gospels," offered to us in these lengthy Ferguson texts, makes no effort to address this reasonable question, but ends up just being the same thoughtless orgasm of ridiculing believers who are stuck in the ancient biblical inerrancy tradition -- the same as other debunkers like Carrier, Ehrman, etc.

Is this what we need "scholarship" for? to just pound away at the difficulty of preserving the exact words of Jesus or other ancient figures who were quoted? and thus repudiate 99% of the ancient writers who must have been "making things up" and "lying" and "falsifying" because they didn't write the same way as Thucydides? and whose readers are the low-class 99% rabble masses who never read Thucydides and therefore only know "make-believe"?

As such, there is a far greater degree of authorial license in the Gospels, even if ancient historians and historical biographers engaged in creative liberties that would exceed the boundaries of modern historiographical techniques.

I.e., the elite historians and biographers also did such "authorial license" writing, as in the Gospels, but the Gospel writers did a greater amount of it. This is a reasonable possibility to consider. A useful purpose is served in assuming that the Gospel writers did more of this "authorial license" writing than most other writers -- but only if we also ask: WHY did they?

If we seriously consider the possibility that many of the sayings were not really those of Jesus, then an explanation for this is necessary. I.e., what made Jesus so important that these writers found it necessary to put their words into his mouth and not someone else's? And, why didn't anyone else, i.e., any other writers, put similar words into some other hero's mouth? Why did so many different writers all converge onto this one person only and attribute all these words to him?

The miracle acts of Jesus as a real possibility gives the answer to this question. Without him having actually performed those miracle acts, there is no way to explain what inspired all these different writers to come swarming in to take this Jesus person for their Great Teacher -- i.e., for all of them to use this one person only, and not other popular heroes, to be their mouthpiece.

. . . formulaic sayings in the Synoptic Gospels, which critical scholars have long recognized are probably not authentic words spoken by Jesus.

But if there was an unusually great amount of this -- assigning words to Jesus which he did not really speak -- it becomes even more imperative to answer this question: Why did these writers all converge onto this one person to put words into his mouth? What was so special about him that they all converged on him only and attributed their teachings to him?

Is this unique to the Jesus case? That's what Ferguson is saying -- i.e., there's MORE of this "direct speech" in the Gospels. But if so, then WHY? Why did so many different writers have such a need to use only this Jesus person as this instrument to communicate their thinking? Why only him and not someone else?

Who's another example of someone made into a Great Teacher, and even a god, by so many people putting their words into his mouth? Your inability to answer this, or rather, the lack of any answer to this, is evidence that Jesus did in fact perform those miracle acts (or people believed he did -- and ONLY he did such things), literally, as described in the Gospel accounts, which then explains why so many writers attributed their teachings to him.

If it was not the miracle acts which distinguished him and caused him to become this spokesman for all the various teachings, then what is the explanation why so many writers used only him in this way? Why didn't they choose someone else to attribute their teachings to? Rather than choosing only this one person, why instead don't we have several different Savior Son-of-God Messiah legends being offered by different writers and cults, each promoting a separate version of a God-Man teaching and doing miracles?

Other possible prominent figures they could have used:

• John the Baptist, who arguably had a wider following than Jesus in 30 AD. He too was executed and could have been worshiped as a martyr.

• James the Just, believed to be the brother of Jesus, who was the prominent leader of the early Jerusalem Church. Scholar Robert Eisenman believes this James was actually the Teacher of Righteousness named in the Dead Sea Scrolls and that he was more widely respected than Jesus was. Also executed.

• The rabbis Hillel and Shammai, who arguably were more widely-recognized than Jesus before 40-50 AD.

• And of course there were numerous zealot figures, prophets and messiah-pretenders. What is there to distinguish Jesus from any of these if he did not do the miracle acts?

All these were ignored in the literature and no one else chosen to serve this Teacher-Prophet role to whom all writers had to attribute their teachings.

It's not just that the above and others are never written about similarly as Jesus is in the Gospels, but that there is nothing similar to this case in all the legends, heroes, Messiah-figures etc. Nothing even close. Why is there virtually no other case of a Great Teacher or Prophet being made a voice for later writers, but this Jesus person only?

Of course you can name rare cases like Gautama Buddha and Confucius as being similar. But in those cases the Teacher had been a widely-recognized celebrity during his lifetime, who enjoyed a long teaching career during which he mesmerized hundreds of disciples with his charisma, over decades, not just 3 years or less, and thus it's easy to explain how these famous teachers with long distinguished careers became a kind of mouthpiece for a few later writers (usually many centuries later) -- and yet Jesus is by far the foremost example of this phenomenon of a mouthpiece to whom teachings were attributed.

And yet in the singular case of Jesus there is no explanation WHY he was chosen for this role, as there is an explanation for Buddha etc. He had less fame, during his life, than many other potential "messiahs" and none of the wide recognition or status of a Buddha or Confucius or Socrates etc. Yet he stands out as the one Great Teacher so many religious writers had to use as their mouthpiece, within decades after his death, while it required much longer than that for other great Teachers/Prophets to become used like this in the later writings.

As such, there is a far greater degree of authorial license in the Gospels, . . .

Perhaps, but WHY? What is the extreme unique need to make this Jesus their Messiah or Prophet or Son-of-God figure instead of anyone else?

And the Gospel writers had so much less information about the Jesus person they present in their accounts -- how were they to fill this unusual gap in the record? By contrast, the mainline historians chose their characters from among famous and powerful celebrities who led nations and armies and disposed of thousands (even millions) of people's lives. It's easier to have information about such powerful elitist historical figures (their childhood, e.g.) than about someone who never had any power or status during his life.

Why did the Gospel writers choose someone so obscure? someone they knew so little about? Did they deliberately choose someone obscure? That makes no sense -- there were millions of obscure persons they could have chosen, and yet they all chose only this one. Why? So he must have been noted for something despite being of no status or recognition. What was he noted for, if not the miracle acts?

So it's possible a greater element of conjecture and "authorial license" might be at work in the case of Jesus than for the established power-wielders -- Kings and Emperors and Generals etc. -- who gained recognition by building empires and vanquishing those who resisted their authority. It must be because he stood out uniquely, in a way that was important and could not be ignored, and yet in such a way that he had no official status and no recognition from the mainline historians who focused only on those of high status and wealth and power.


What about his "fame" which spread "throughout the whole region of Galilee"? (Mk 1:27-34)

It's true there are some Gospel passages which say his "fame" spread around the region, but these same texts say he performed miracles, healing the sick who were brought to him in large numbers, which is the only explanation for the "fame" which spread. So if he did have "fame" such as described, the only explanation for it is the miracle power he demonstrated in these amazing acts.

Whereas if Jesus did not really do such acts, then the same text which wrongly says he did was probably also wrong in saying that his "fame" spread. So if you assume he did not do such acts, you must also assume his "fame" is fictional as well, in which case you have to explain why someone of no fame or recognition became mythologized into the Messiah and Son of God and became the mouthpiece for so many different crusaders promoting their different teachings and all attributing them to this one person only -- a person of no wide repute like all others who came to be made into legends.

We can explain how famous Teachers like Buddha or Socrates became a later legend and mouthpiece for writers who put their words into his mouth, because of the Teacher's widespread fame which he established over a long career of charismatically influencing his disciples. But this explanation cannot apply in the case of Jesus, whose fame did not exist until long after his death (i.e., assuming the miracle acts did not really happen).

. . . even if ancient historians and historical biographers engaged in creative liberties that would exceed the boundaries of modern historiographical techniques.

This is the conjecture we're considering, i.e., that ALL the ancient writers engaged in the same "authorial license" ("creative liberties") as did the Gospel writers, but that the latter did a higher degree of this than the mainline historians. It's a reasonable possibility to consider. However, it's unreasonable to suppose this without trying to answer WHY the Gospel writers engaged in this "authorial license" -- you have to take this seriously enough to seek an answer to this, and not just scoff at the Gospel writings for possibly displaying more "authorial license" in them. It's not legitimate to just obsess on this "authorial license" if you're unwilling to ask what caused it.

The real difference between the historians and the Gospel writers is not the degree of honesty, but rather the difference of the subject matter: The historians wrote of the rich and powerful elite who were widely recognized, while the Gospel writers chose a non-established unrecognized and unknown figure -- unknown during his lifetime -- for whom we have no explanation why anyone wrote about him (unless he did those miracle acts, which could explain why).

It's this difference of subject matter which could result in the Gospel writers resorting more to the "authorial license" -- their information was much more scarce or limited, being focused on a non-elitist non-celebrity person of no status or connection to those in power. This information gap, plus also the unique urgency of their message, is what would cause more "authorial license" in their case, forcing them to be more emphatic and avoid ambiguous language and speculation (like the "signpost" wording).


Does it matter if there's more "AUTHORIAL LICENSE" in the Gospels?

Why does it matter if there's a "far greater degree of authorial license in the Gospels" than in the established historical writings, like Thucydides? When Ferguson makes this comparison, why does he like to keep using only Thucydides for the comparison, who is not the norm and is probably the most meticulous in following the "rules" Ferguson expects historians to follow? and also the one closest to being an eye witness? Since other historians fall short of his example, does this also make them less credible? Is Thucydides the only ancient writer we should believe for any historical events? since all the others fall short of his example?

Assuming there is this "authorial license" in the Gospel accounts, what are some examples of it? What's an example in the Gospels of Ferguson's "fiction" or "make-believe"? Is this really some kind of flaw making these writings less credible? What's an example of something less credible?

WHERE'S THE "MAKE-BELIEVE" in the Gospels? Ferguson never offers any example, but instead remains stuck on literary style only, on "signposts" and "authorial license" and "direct speech" and so on, which prove nothing and also do not distinguish the Gospel writings from anything other than Thucydides.

So, someone needs to do Ferguson's homework for him by looking at some possible cases of "fiction" in the Gospels, and trying to figure out what might have really happened vs. the Gospel's account. The truth is that the miracle stories in these accounts become MORE credible, not less, as we consider all the evidence, all the content, including suspected fiction parts, plus the sayings which might not be authentic, or other dubious content.

It's obvious we have 2 categories of content we might suspect: 1) the sayings of Jesus, which might be words of later writers, and 2) reported events, including the deeds of Jesus in the narrative portions, especially the miracle acts, which are suspect. These 2 categories are where the "authorial license" might be suspected.

As to 1) the sayings, a reasonable person has to allow at least a core of a genuine component to the sayings -- so that at least 5% or 10% of it is authentic. Most believers would put this much higher, but what is the great loss to Christ belief even if the percent turns out to be low? Why does this matter so much? It's clear that much of the teachings/sayings reflect ideas in earlier sources -- rabbinical writings, Dead Sea Scroll language, gnostic language, etc. So the question "Did Jesus really say this?" is difficult to answer. Or "Did this originate from Jesus?" But more important is this: even if it's not originally from him, we still are driven toward the literal truth of the miracle stories, because only this can explain why later writers attributed to him the words which might not be authentic.


What are possible examples of FICTION in the Gospels?

Note that the Gospel-debunker-scholar, like Ferguson, has no interest in this question. He only caters to the mindset of the "JUST A BUNCH OF HOGWASH!" and "THEY MADE UP SHIT!" outbursts.

But if we calm down and look at category 2) the events or deeds narrated in the Gospels, we can see possibilities of "fiction" in the Gospel narratives, while the pattern of them does not undermine the miracle stories, but even reinforces these as possibly factual in origin.


At what location did that herd of swine stampede over the cliff?

One example is the story of the Gadarene demoniac(s) in which a herd of swine stampedes over a cliff. One might suspect some fiction in this story, but the basic miracle act probably did really happen, because in fact the story cannot be explained unless something like the miracle healing act really did happen.

But there's no evidence of swine-herding in that region, the Sea of Galilee eastern coast, and there are no cliffs along the seashore where the event could have happened.

Simcha Jacobovici provides a theory on the origin of this story in Mark 5 ( http://www.simchajtv.com/the-lost-voyage-of-jesus/ ) The entire story runs from Mark 4:35 to 5:20, to include the earlier episode of the storm at sea, in which Jesus is awakened and calms the storm, just prior to the demoniac event. (Jacobovici https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simcha_Jacobovici produces Bible documentaries and runs a pop "archaeology" TV show in which he offers theories about Bible stories.)

He puts this event not in the Sea of Galilee and eastern shore as the Gospels have it, but rather in the Mediterranean Sea and on the coast of Spain, at the ancient city of Cadiz (Gadiz). He gives reasons for this, citing evidence why it could not have happened at the Sea of Galilee. He thinks the Jesus boat made a stop in the Balearic Islands where the storm occurred. (His argument can be summed up: There were only very small boats on the Sea of Galilee, no major storms, and there was no cliff area along the eastern shore where the demoniac event and stampede could have taken place. But there is evidence of a Jesus voyage westward on the Mediterranean -- evidence of him having been in the area of Cadiz and the Balearic Islands, where the geography fits the described events.)

If Jacobovici is right, then the Gospel writers engaged in "authorial license" by adding the fiction details about this happening on the Sea of Galilee and a cliff along the eastern shore.

It could very well be that the Gospel writers, or their sources, did engage in this kind of conjecture, having so little precise information, and filling in some details which were fictional, and that they did this more frequently than the historical writers, who also did such conjecture but less of it. So if this is what Ferguson means by "authorial license" he might be right, but this does not detract from the miracle stories as being credible, but rather strengthens the case that they are based on fact.

If Jacobovici's theory about this scene of Mark 4:35-5:20 is correct, the "fiction" in this Gospel story is the location where it happened, not the miracle events. It's assumed the storm did happen and Jesus was awakened, and that the later stampede of pigs over a cliff did happen. (The stampede might have been a response by the herd when some pigs were startled by the demoniac who screamed.)

So these might have been real events and not fiction invented by Mark. (Or, even if Jacobovici's theory about the location is incorrect, the correct explanation of the story could be similar in showing possible fictional elements added later to an original story which did include the miracle act.) This kind of explanation makes more sense than the impulsive cliché "They made up shit!" -- for this and also other miracle stories in the Gospels.

Whatever the correct explanation, to it can be added the conjecture that either: 1) the miracle part of the story was added later, as fiction, or 2) that the miracle really did happen as part of the historical event. But either way, there was a real event as the original basis for the story which later got recorded in Mark.

The 2 conjectures:

1) the miracle is fiction: This conjecture has the overall problem of explaining why we have such a unique case of miracle stories being added to recent historical events, when this was extremely rare in the ancient literature. (It's typical to think this was common, but you'll have great difficulty finding examples of it.) There are no other examples of this which are at all comparable -- the closest would be from among the sudden unexplained explosion of miracle stories after 100 AD, after the Gospels were circulating. Also, this demoniac story without the miracle event has no significance or meaning, so there would be no reason to record it. And it portrays Jesus unfavorably -- if later believers should invent a Jesus miracle story, it would not include something unfavorable that causes the onlookers to reject him -- "And they began to beg Jesus to depart from their neighborhood."

2) the miracle really happened: This conjecture answers all the questions. Added to all the other reported miracle acts, it explains how Jesus came to be deified or made into the Messiah, and how all these unique miracle stories popped up suddenly in the first century without any precedent to explain them. The only argument against this conjecture is the doctrinal premise that miracle events can never happen, even if there is evidence that they did in certain cases.

Meanwhile, Ferguson has nothing of substance to offer by way of explanation (for the "authorial license"), but only keeps repeating his "novelistic" and "fiction" and "novella" jargon over and over again, as if creative authors routinely just "made up" such stories frequently, like another best-seller, as though there were many other examples of this -- even though he can name no other case of such a "novella" appearing in all the literature, putting miracle stories into recent historical events.

Though there's at least one he does pretend to offer (maybe more will turn up later down the list of links). But this is such a pathetic example that it's only further evidence that there are no serious cases in the literature of a miracle-worker or miracle act placed into recent historical events, similar to what we see in the Gospel accounts.


Was Jesus Christ another Alexander the Great?

Socrates: What's the difference between an orange and an elephant?

lpetrich/Ferguson: I don't know -- what's the difference?

Socrates: I sure wouldn't send YOU to buy groceries.​

Farther down the links here -- (to be dealt with in a future Wall of Text) -- our scholar mentions something about an Alexander the Great "novella" of sorts, as an earlier miracle legend similar to the Jesus case. But this is no comparison whatever to the case of Jesus, who was not a spectacular military celebrity, or anything close, during his life. It is imbecilic to see any parallel between Jesus of the Gospels and such a powerful political figure who conquered half the known world.

A major factor setting Jesus apart from Alexander and other celebrated heroes is that there is no way to explain what brought him the recognition necessary to cause him to become mythologized into a miracle legend. But is there any difficulty figuring out how Alexander became popularized into a folk hero legend?

And yet, despite all the potential for miracle myth-making in his case, no one can name a serious "miracle" Alexander reportedly performed, except that his birth was "divine" -- which means what? That's supposed to be comparable to Jesus curing the lepers and raising the dead? How does a "divine birth" make the world, or even one individual, better off? A tuna sandwich has more value.

That there are no real miracle acts reported in the legends of Alexander (but only a so-called "divine" birth) is itself virtual proof that there was no pattern of reported instant miracle-workers in the ancient world, and that ordinary people did not believe in the latest charlatan who came to town or cult guru claiming to do miracles, and that they did NOT "make up shit" (i.e., not NEW shit), but reserved their superstitions only for the ancient deities who were worshiped and prayed to for magical acts of power. This is further evidence that only the ancient deities like Asclepius and Zeus and Apollo etc. were believed to intervene with miracle acts.

We have only one exception to this -- one case outside the traditional pattern of miracle beliefs in antiquity, and the Gospel accounts reporting it are in the same category or "genre" of literature as 99% of the ancient writings (minus Thucydides), being of equal credibility to sources we accept for a large part of our historical record.


(this Wall of Text to be continued)

 

[funinspace]

Too bad Lumpy couldn't put a few words into fleshing out how Jebus could also be the Son of Quetzalcoatl...

 

[Lumpenproletariat]

Do the Gospels belong in a "GENRE" of literature which makes them necessarily FICTION?

(continued from previous Wall of Text)

Here are some links on what the Gospels have in common with various works from antiquity nowadays considered fictional.

WHICH "various works from antiquity"? There are NO "works . . . considered fictional" named here as having anything "in common" with the Gospels. Rather, the Gospel accounts are compared here to the mainline "historians" who wrote about Emperor Tiberius, and the point seems to be that any writing not in this "historian" category has to be fictional, meaning even legitimate sources like Cicero and Pliny the Elder and Philo of Alexandria would have to go into the defective "fictional" category, as it's described here.

The categorizing flaw: The Gospel writings are assigned to the "fictional" category and so must be fiction because they're in that category, or in this case because they're not Tacitus or Suetonius. I.e., circular logic: It is fiction because we assign it to a fiction "genre" (or the not-Tacitus category) and then declare that it must be fiction because of its assignment to that "genre" vs. some other category.

(The below resumes at #8 of 10 "relevant areas of distinction" between the Gospels and the "historians" in the first link in the list.) The not-Tacitus non-"history" category basically includes 99% of all the ancient writings -- Cicero, Philo of Alexandria, the Gospels, Pliny the Younger, and all that other "fictional" literature. Probably even Josephus and Herodotus. It even includes the greater part of the "historical" works, because only a small fraction of these really follows Ferguson's criteria for "historical" writing, while the greater part of them does not.

The first link here could be titled: Historical Writing Compared to All Ancient Writings Other than Thucydides or Tacitus etc.

Ancient Historical Writing Compared to the Gospels of the New Testament | Κέλσος
The Certamen of Homer and Hesiod and the Gospels: Some Comparanda | Κέλσος
Lawrence Wills: “The Life of Aesop and the Hero Cult Paradigm in the Gospel Tradition” | Κέλσος
Are the Gospels Ancient Biographies?: The Spectrum of Ancient Βίοι | Κέλσος
Greek Popular Biography: Romance, Contest, Gospel | Κέλσος
Patterns of Myth-Making Between the Lives of Alexander the Great and Jesus Christ | Κέλσος
 Ancient Greek novel

The fixation this time is on whether the Gospels are dependent on each other, as though there is something deficient about a document which quotes an earlier document, i.e., Matthew and Luke quoting Mark. Which apparently puts them in the "fictional" category, though no reason is given why a document is somehow inferior or deficient just because it quotes an earlier document.

Though some "historical" writing is supported by other INDEPENDENT sources, much is not. E.g., not all of Tacitus or Thucydides is corroborated by other independent sources, so it is fallacious to make corroboration by independent sources a criterion for credibility of a document, unless half of Tacitus etc. is cast into the "fictional" category.

There's no evidence in these links that the Jesus miracle stories are fictional. Rather, the methodology is to assign the Gospel accounts to a "genre" labeled as "fiction" (or "novelistic" and also not-Tacitus or not-Thucydides) and insist that only the official "historical" writings are credible, and ignore the straightforward content in the Gospels which identifies what type of literature they really are.


What "GENRE" of ancient literature do the Gospels really belong to?

• A document of this "genre" presents events, reported as factual, which are placed into a historical setting, into the events of that time and location, despite whether intermixed with fictional or religious or propaganda elements.

• The document was written near to the time of the historical events, not several centuries later.

• The document is short, by comparison to mainline historical writings, and focused on one particular event as special, rather than the broad historical overview.

So if you want to categorize the Gospels into a "genre" of literature, for comparison, the above description is the "genre" to which they belong. But this category, which the Gospel writings really belong to, is ignored by Matthew Ferguson, throughout these links, while he instead places the Gospels artificially into some kind of "fiction" category by fixating here on their dissimilarities with the "historical" writings, and in particular, on how there is some interdependency between the Gospels, shown by the reliance on Mark.

He ignores the totally different type of subject matter of the Gospels in contrast to the "historians" who limited themselves to reporting only on the rich and powerful elite, e.g., on Tiberius and other Roman Emperors, for whom there was abundant information from hundreds of sources, by contrast to Jesus, who was mostly a figure of no status or recognition during his life, and so was vastly more difficult to document. Persons of lesser status are the ones who can be compared to Jesus, and for many/most of them there is less information and less corroboration than we have for Jesus in the Gospels.

The ways in which the Gospels diverge from and fall short of the historical writing of their time are perhaps too numerous to exhaustively treat here, but I will discuss ten relevant areas of distinction that are helpful for understanding how historical writing is different. . . .

8. Independence versus Interdependence

One thing that amazes me as a Classicist is just how interdependent the Gospels are upon each other. Matthew borrows from as much as 80% of Mark’s material, and Luke borrows from 65% of the material in the earliest gospel.

Nothing about this undermines the credibility of any of these three sources. There is nothing about reliance on an earlier source which undermines the credibility of a writer. It only shows the belief of the later writer that the earlier account is reliable. That alone adds to the credibility of the earlier account. I.e., a later writer saw fit to use it, presenting it as factual and adding some further content to it which is also presented as factual -- so, how does that undermine the credibility of either account? And how does it not ADD to the credibility of the earlier account that a later writer quotes from it?

How can anyone say it actually diminishes the credibility of the earlier document that a later writer quotes from it? No one ever explains how either document is less credible just because the later one quotes from the earlier. Even if it quotes extensively from it.

It means that the later source may be dependent on that earlier source for the quoted part, and that therefore there is only one source for that part, rather than two. However, it still makes that quoted part more credible, because it shows that more than only one writer believed it.

So the second writer helps reinforce the earlier source by quoting from it, based on his belief that it is reliable. We don't know that the later writer didn't have some additional source, perhaps oral, for it. When Matthew quotes Mark, this increases the credibility of Mark on that passage, because Matthew believed it for some reason, and we don't know that it wasn't a good reason, such as oral sources Matthew had which confirmed the Mark passage.

While John does not follow the ipsissima verba of the Synoptics, the author is still aware of the same basic skeleton and is probably familiar with one or more of the earlier gospels (as shown by scholar Louis Ruprecht in This Tragic Gospel). In fact, I know of almost no other texts from antiquity that share as much material as the canonical Gospels.

So -- how does this make the Gospels deficient or less credible as a source? There is nothing here explaining what is wrong with the Gospels that they do this. Why is this repeated over and over as if this is some kind of defect in the Gospels, as if it undermines their credibility? Can anyone explain what makes Matthew or Luke less credible because they quote from Mark? Or what makes Mark less credible because it's quoted by these later writers? If we grant that this is somewhat unique to the Gospel accounts, in comparison to other writings, how does this make them any less credible?

While it is true that the Gospels are not entirely derivative of each other, in that they do have some independent sources not copied from one another (such as the M-Source for Matthew, or the L-Source for Luke), the interdependence that is seen between the canonical Gospels is still far greater than what is typical of ancient historians.

But how does being untypical of ancient "historians" make the Gospels less credible? Wouldn't it increase the credibility of Polybius if some of his text had been repeated in Tacitus or Suetonius? Would it have been wrong for a historian to quote an earlier source? Why? Would it have made his account or the one he quotes any less credible? Why? Why would it not INcrease the credibility of the earlier account for it to be repeated by a later writer?

This is very bad for historical reliability, . . .

No it's not. There is no reason given here how the reliability is at all diminished simply because a source is quoted in a later source. Neither source is made less reliable as a source for history.

. . . since independent attestation can be very helpful for verifying historical claims, . . .

OK, but such "independent attestation" is LACKING for most facts in even the mainline historical sources we rely on -- and yet we believe them anyway. While at the same time DEPENDENT attestation is also helpful for verifying historical claims. Independent attestation may be especially helpful, but ANY attestation is better than no attestation at all, and NO ATTESTATION is the norm, in all the historical writings we rely on, for most of the facts, while independent attestation is the exception.

So, what's "very bad" here? Why isn't it also "very helpful" if an earlier source is used by a later writer? Why doesn't that also help to verify the historical claims? That the earlier account is given this recognition increases its status, doesn't it? Doesn't this indicate that it's taken more seriously and is believed by the later writer? Why isn't that "helpful" in establishing its credibility? How can this be "very bad" for credibility of the claims in the account?

Of course it adds a little more if the later writer provides a separate account verifying the same event. There's also some of that in the Gospels. E.g., the multiplying the fish and loaves is reported in all four gospel accounts, but the John version is not dependent on Mark as Matthew and Luke are. They are separate accounts of the same event.

So the Gospels each contain some material which is not dependent on the others and some material which is dependent.

. . . and yet the Gospels all fail this criterion miserably.

No they don't. In addition to the above, there are other events, including miracles, which are reported separately, not dependent on Mark. One clear case is the Resurrection appearances, which do not coincide well between the accounts, with apparent discrepancies. It's obvious that the Luke resurrection appearances are totally independent of Mark, meaning we have separate accounts relating the same or similar event(s), even if there is confusion or error on the details.

There is more independent attestation for the Jesus miracle events than there is for many/most reported historical events of antiquity which we routinely accept, even though they're reported in only one source, or two. The high-profile historical characters and major events reported independently in multiple separate sources are the exception rather than the rule. Most of the minor characters and events are not supported by extra sources, but are reported in one source only, whereas the Jesus miracles are reported in 4 sources. And he has to be compared with the minor characters because he was mostly unknown during his lifetime.

So to say "the Gospels all fail this criterion miserably" is false -- they provide the extra sources for the events, some "independent" and some "dependent" (or whatever term you choose), whereas for MOST of the minor historical events there is not this extra corroboration.

And as to MAJOR EVENTS, like those of the Roman emperors, etc. -- just because there is extra corroboration/sources for these does not change the fact that MOST minor historical events we routinely believe are not corroborated by extra sources. AND YET WE BELIEVE THEM! We believe them even if they're reported in one source only, with no corroboration, from a dependent or independent source.

The same is not true for ancient historical works.

YES IT IS true for MOST historical events reported by the mainline historians. There are MILLIONS of events in them, and most are not corroborated by independent sources. Only the MAJOR events are supported by extra sources.

Most of our mainline history text is NOT supported by extra sources -- only some of it is. And yet the part that is not supported is believed anyway (or most of it is). And some of the Gospel events are supported by extra separate sources, despite the interdependency for many of them. This interdependency and quoting from Mark does NOT diminish the credibility.

Consider just the four most extensive sources that we have for the life of the emperor Tiberius: Paterculus, . . .

Phony FALSE comparison! Tiberius was probably the most powerful and wealthy and elitist and famous celebrity of that period. Of course there are multiple overlapping sources for the Roman emperor who dominated millions of lives, rewarding and promoting the interests of some while stomping on others. Of course that kind of historical figure gets massive attention from the professional historians. Is there difficulty understanding that Jesus Christ was not a supreme military commander and Emperor? Can't there also be some reliable information on someone other than such elitist high-profile power-wielders? Less total information and fewer sources does not mean these lesser-known persons are fictional.

For the lives of more normal and minor persons, who were only in the top 5% of society rather than the top .01%, there was less coverage and less corroboration of their deeds. That doesn't mean they didn't exist or that we can't know anything about them. We have some limited evidence on the lives of these who were not in the top .1% elite.

Paterculus, Tacitus, Suetonius, and Cassius Dio. All four authors obtain their material from a much broader range of sources, . . .

There were more sources because there was much more information available on elitist powerful rulers than on someone of low status or recognition. But this does not mean the latter did not exist or that we can't know anything about them. There was some legitimate information on them, even if they are less documented.

And let's assume it's true that the Gospel writers/editors included in the account some conjecture about Jesus, along with the part they knew for certain, because of the limited information -- by contrast, those reporting on Tiberius had much less need to do such conjecture because of the greater quantity of information available on such a powerful ruler.

To say we therefore cannot believe the Gospel accounts is to say in effect that we cannot know anything from ancient history except about the top .1% powerful elite, and all else has to be fiction only, because there are no credible sources for anyone other than the top .1% elite. Which is false. There are credible sources.

. . . rather than simply copy from each other, . . .

But the Gospel writers mostly did NOT copy from each other. At least 90% of Matthew and Luke is NOT dependent on Mark, and 99% of them is not copied, even though much of their text relies on Mark, or expands it. This shows they believed Mark generally but also thought they were correcting or improving on Mark, which means they were relying on much more than only Mark. There is both dependency as well as independence.

. . . they [historians] write in a far more diverse range of styles, . . .

Of course, because the total volume of their writing is probably 100 times greater in quantity than the Gospel writings (maybe only 50 times, maybe 500 -- it's impossible to measure this precisely), so in such a greater volume of writing there is bound to be a greater range of styles. And their writings span a period of about 220 years, while the Gospels were all written within a space of 40 years or less. And if you add to the Gospels the many additional writings about Jesus over the next 2 centuries, the range of writing styles broadens by a huge amount.

. . . and yet they independently corroborate each other’s claims.

Of course they do, because these mainline "historical" writers were all focused on this .01% most powerful elite character only (or .001%), i.e., the most famous celebrity, known everywhere and about whom there was much information and widespread gossip, and whose impact was felt everywhere. You can't compare such a power-wielder to Jesus who had no such recognition during his life.

Paterculus is an eyewitness historian writing a brief universal history of the known world, which concludes with Tiberius’ military campaigns (which he himself took part in). Tacitus is writing a year-by-year annalistic history of the Julio-Claudian period, but rather than just copy Paterculus for Tiberius, he instead draws from a whole array of authors who wrote during . . .

Yes, of course a powerful tyrant gets more attention and more writings about him during that century, and thus there was much more information available to draw from. You have to find people of lesser status than this to compare to Jesus, who had no military or political power and a total public career of only three years maximum. You do not prove your point by making such a false comparison.

You don't prove that Tiberius and a few other elitists were the only humans on the planet by showing that our best information is about only them and not the other 99.9% of humans. The other 99.9% also existed and we have some information about them, or some of them. You cannot disparage all the millions of other humans just because they were not famous and powerful enough in the first century to dominate the information sources. Some others also existed and we can know something about them -- though not as much.

For the life of Tiberius we have a wide array of independent sources corroborating each other, whereas for Jesus we have sources that are all copying and redacting one another, . . .

And for most known historical persons we have even less than that, only one source in many cases. And yet those lesser-known persons did exist and we do know about them. It's not true that they are fictional just because there are so few sources about them and no corroboration.

. . . for Jesus we have sources that are all copying and redacting one another, . . .

How are sources any less credible because they copied from earlier sources, or incorporated pieces of earlier sources? Multiple sources, even if they copied or redacted from others, are still better than only one source, which is the norm. What is the difficulty of understanding that TIBERIUS IS NOT THE NORM among the ancient historical figures? Not all historical figures must be as famous and powerful as the Roman Emperor in order to have existed and for us to know something about them today with the ancient sources which have survived down to us.

. . . not providing as much independent information or research, but instead repeating and adding to growing legends.

And yet with these sources, the repetitions, the legends, we have MORE independent information on Jesus than we have for 99% of all the persons named in the historical sources (or 98% -- the exact percent doesn't matter). There's hardly anyone else for whom we have so much attestation outside the extremely rich and powerful, the top .01% elite. Stop obsessing on this tiny elite and look at the rest of the humans, who were 99.9% of the population -- don't they matter too?

These other people, the 99.9%, DID exist, and you have to make room for them in your analysis of the historical writings. They were virtually ignored by the mainline historians. And yet we do have some record of them, and this record is not counterfeit or contraband or taboo or verboten or off-limits. We have to be open to ALL the historical record, not only that part written by elitist professionals who limited themselves to reporting only on the rich and powerful.

One proviso that should be noted is that ancient historians do not always corroborate each other on every claim, and there are likewise occasionally contradictions between their narratives. The historians Polybius and Livy, for example, sometimes contradict each other on the details of Hannibal crossing the Alps, even when they were drawing upon a common historical source. This criterion does not imply, therefore, that ancient historians and historical biographies always drew upon independent sources, or never contradict each other about the details of an event. Nevertheless, there is a far greater degree of independent corroboration seen in ancient historical writing than what can be found in the Gospels, . . .

No, ONLY ON THE MAJOR EVENTS, not on minor events and historical figures who were less prominent. The ancient historical writing also reported minor events -- minor details within the larger events -- which are NOT corroborated. If you separate all the particular events, in detail, one by one, piece by piece, most of them are NOT corroborated. And yet we still believe them. We believe each minor detail because one source reports it -- UNcorroborated.

As an example to illustrate this, how about the executing of Christians by Pliny the Younger. This is related in one source only -- this contains a letter from Pliny to the Emperor Trajan in which Pliny says that he executed Christians who refused to renounce their belief, and also a reply from Trajan approving this and setting conditions for these procedures. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pliny_the_Younger_on_Christians

(Perhaps this Pliny is not technically an "historian," but he is reliable as one source, and obviously there are millions of facts in the "historical" writings which also illustrate this point -- there are minor facts we believe even when there is no corroboration for them.)

So here is one source for a less important event, which almost everyone believes is credible. But it's one source only with no corroboration. Except for this one source we have no evidence that Pliny executed Christians. No "independent corroboration" or verification or anything other than this one single isolated source.

So, do we believe this one single uncorroborated source or not? Virtually everyone believes it, even though the only source is a non-historian. So then why shouldn't we believe the Jesus events which are supported by 4 sources? In fact, the Resurrection is supported by 5 sources -- Paul's epistles adding a 5th source for this one miracle event.

In contrast to Pliny, who was a contemporary to this event, we could use instead the example of Josephus, most of whose subject matter is from earlier than his time. For the period of John Hyrcanus to about 50 AD, Josephus gives a vast amount of information on earlier history not available from any other source, so it's largely UNcorroborated by anything. But that does not downgrade it to the "fictional" category along with the Gospels, according to Ferguson's criteria, by demanding "independent attestation" for historical writings. I.e., even with no corroboration at all there is still credibility.

To quibble over whether it's "independent corroboration" adds little of importance to this. Some of the Jesus events do have "independent corroboration" while others are dependent on Mark. But even this DEPENDENT CORROBORATION is more than we have for millions/billions of historical facts we routinely accept because they appear in one source with no separate corroboration of any kind.

. . . which diminishes the latter’s historical reliability.

Only if we say the mainline historians' reliability is also diminished in the many cases of NON-corroborated facts, which are greater in number than their corroborated facts, because most of their facts are NOT corroborated, either independently or dependently. If you factor in ALL their minor facts individually, most of their account is NOT corroborated.

But still all the accounts are credible, whether corroborated or not. And for the Gospels, the credibility is not reduced by the fact that a later source quotes an earlier one. Rather, it INcreases the credibility of the earlier source that a later one quotes from it. In fact the credibility or reliability of BOTH the earlier and later document is increased by this. Or, the events reported are made more believable by this agreement of the two documents reporting the event.

A basic principle here: corroboration from other sources is a LUXURY, not a necessity, in the historical writings. It adds something to the credibility, but even without it there is credibility. And DEPENDENT CORROBORATION also adds to the credibility, even if not as much as INdependent corroboration.

Such agreement by 2 documents instead of only one makes the report in the accounts MORE reliable than events reported in one source only. You cannot say their reliability is diminished unless you want to toss out billions of facts in the historical record which are dependent on one source only and which thus have less credibility than that of the Gospels which are corroborated by 4 sources.

It's so petty and bone-headed to compare Jesus Christ to the Roman Emperor and insist that nothing can be historical fact unless it has the same "independent corroboration" we have for this elite rich and powerful ruler who was known everywhere and dominated all of Europe.


(this Wall of Text to be continued)