Do the Gospels belong in a "GENRE" of literature which makes them necessarily "FICTION"?
(continued from previous Walls of Text)
I'm not impressed by Lumpenproletariat's spews. I haven't seen in them anything close to a discussion of modern scholarship concerning the origin of the Gospels.
Discussing such a large volume of literature as "modern scholarship concerning the origin of the Gospels" would require extensive Walls of Text beyond these, but the following and earlier spews on the lpetrich links will hopefully approach closer to such a discussion.
Here are some links on what the Gospels have in common with various works from antiquity nowadays considered fictional.
Ancient Historical Writing Compared to the Gospels of the New Testament | Κέλσος . . .
(resuming notes from this link)
For example, there are two sets of miracle collections used in the Gospel of Mark, both of which are designed to model Jesus after Moses.
These "sets" are arbitrarily defined. There were other miracles in Mark, even other "sets of miracles" before and after these "two sets of miracle collections" and which could have been logically included within the "collections" by just extending the text in either direction to include more of the miracle stories. Or the "collections" could have been reduced by reducing the length of the selected texts. There's nothing objective about Ferguson's "two sets of miracle collections" distinguishing them from the rest of the Mark text.
As R.C. Symes (“Jesus’ Miracles and Religious Myth”) explains: Gospel stories about Jesus’ miracles are a type of Midrash . . .
Only in the sense that virtually ALL texts or ALL stories are types of Midrash (or all those written by Jews).
. . . type of Midrash (i.e., contemporizing and reinterpreting) of Old Testament events in order to illustrate theological themes.
You could probably say this to describe half of the stories and history written over the last 2000 years. The Mark stories are no more related to OT events ("reinterpreting" them) than hundreds/thousands of subsequent stories or historical events. There is nothing in the Mark miracles any more related to Old Testament events than to ancient Roman or Greek events/legends. Or Hindu legends. Parallels can be drawn to any ancient legends from virtually any literature, or any historical hero figures. You can draw similar parallels between Davy Crockett and ancient Hebrew or Greek & Roman legends. Or Norse mythology. Hundreds of real historical figures and fiction characters can be seen as parallels to the ancient heroes.
(I'll inject here again that there is one case only of a Jesus miracle story having a noteworthy connection to something earlier, and thus possibly derived from the earlier story. This is the multiplying the fish-and-loaves (Mark 6:34-44 and 8:1-9). This one story has a similarity to the Elisha story of II Kings 4:42-44, giving reason to believe the earlier story may have inspired part of the later Jesus story. Since this one case stands alone as the single Jesus miracle story resembling something earlier, I've been giving it extra attention:
The only serious argument against the Miracles of Jesus as historical fact
Since this is the only serious case of a connection of a Jesus miracle act to anything earlier, it's clear that there is no pattern of the reported Jesus miracle acts being derived from earlier stories or traditions. There is only this one exception -- if there were several others one might then claim a pattern exists.)
Drawing parallels like this between legends from different periods does not prove that any of them are more likely to be fiction. There's reason to believe some of the later legends are fiction. But that a modern hero figure resembles some ancient Greek hero is no evidence that the modern hero is fictional.
If we have a modern legend who is also a real person who did a heroic deed, then his resemblance to an ancient fictional hero does not turn him into a fictional character. So the resemblance to an ancient fictional character is no evidence that the later character is fictional. We already know he is either fact or fiction, regardless of any resemblance to an earlier fictional character. That resemblance is no evidence whatever that the later character is fictional. At best it's only evidence that later symbols got added to the story of this later character who was a real person.
Among the many miracles in Mark’s original narrative, there are two sets of five miracles each. Each set begins with a sea-crossing miracle and ends with a miraculous feeding.
Ferguson here chooses the text matter from Mark 4:35-8:9 and describes this run of text as two "sets" of five miracles each. But why does he single out this particular block of text from Mark? There are miracle stories both before and after this block of text, and nothing distinctive about this run of text from 4:35-8:9 to make it a special sequence to single out to be carved up and analyzed into "sets" of something. One could objectively begin the text block one chapter earlier than at 4:35, or later, or end it one chapter earlier or later than 8:9. Why does he chop out this particular segment of Mark to be broken down further into two "sets" like this? and fixing a dividing line between the "sets" at 6:44 / 6:45?
One can play with the sequence of events and wording in order to produce "sets" of these or those events seeming to follow a pattern. Depending on where the "set" begins, you can come up with a seeming pattern.
A more logical arrangement of the miracle stories from the above chopped-out block of text would begin the first "set" of miracles with the sea crossing (Mk 4:35) and end with the raising of Jairus' daughter (5:43); then the second "set" beginning with the feeding of the 5000 (6:34) and ending with the healings at Gennesaret (6:56); and then a third "set" beginning with the healing of the Syrophoenician woman (7:24) and ending with the feeding of the 4000 (8:9). So really there are THREE "sets" of miracles here, rather than two.
These
three "sets" make more sense than Ferguson's two "sets" because they are not interrupted by extraneous teaching matter unconnected to the miracle stories. But because there's no repeating pattern shown by these three "sets" of miracles, Ferguson instead creates different "sets" of miracles, finding two "sets" here instead of three, and so he artificially makes this text matter a special section of Mark, running from 4:35 to 8:9 in order to come up with his amazing discovery that there are two "sets" of miracle stories containing 5 miracles each and each "set" ending with a feeding miracle. With this kind of logic one could easily prove many claims of numerologists about how the Hebrew Prophets predict when the world will come to an end, or how Nostradamus predicted Napoleon or Adolph Hitler.
You can prove any fantastic omen or prophecy you imagine by taking an ancient text and carving it up like this into artificial "sets" of verses or hexameters or triameters or other pieces, and putting the dividing points between the "sets" any place where they produce the desired pattern you're seeking to find in it.
Can you imagine the Mark redactor or editor in 70 AD counting the number of miracles falling between 4:35 and 8:9 and adding or subtracting one to make the number come out to the magic number 5? or rearranging the order to make each "set" end with a miracle feeding story? Why would he select this one unique block of text with which to play such a game?
Of course a Gospel writer might engage in some such numbers game, like over-using certain magic numbers like 3 or 7 or 12. Or "40 days and 40 nights" etc. In some cases there may be a fictional element introduced into the text as a result of this. But this says nothing about whether the Jesus miracle act really happened. Such use of a magic number is only a later embellishment added to the original miracle story. A writer or storyteller was fascinated with the Jesus story, the miracle acts, and perhaps expanded it, or exaggerated something, to bring the magic number into it, for some additional impact.
One has to be extremely desperate for excitement to get an orgasm over such numbers, seeking a pattern of the "miraculous feedings" or "sea crossings" or the number of exorcisms between this sea crossing and that miraculous feeding. If you're seeking out such patterns and magic numbers, you're bound to find something throughout all the many chapters -- it would be amazing if you were unable to find something. The phone book probably has many such patterns and magic numbers scattered randomly throughout its pages, if you look for them.
He uses this literary construct so his readers will recall the role of Moses leading his people through water towards the promised land, and feeding them with manna from heaven.
How does crossing the Red Sea, with the waters divided in half to produce dry land, resemble a boat ride across the Sea of Galilee? These are both "leading his people through water"? With a stretch like this, you could connect almost any sea story to Moses going to the promised land.
Likewise the story of Columbus crossing the Atlantic to discover his "promised land" is a similar literary construct. Much of what we call "history" might be fiction because it resembles earlier legends in some way. So every account of anyone crossing a body of water is really just a metaphor derived from Moses crossing the Red Sea.
Jesus does something similar.
Yes, along with several million other historical figures who crossed an ocean or lake or river and encountered any trouble. All the Spanish and Portuguese explorers from 1492-1600 did "something similar" to this. Some of them even experienced miracles. Here's a Christopher Columbus miracle story:
http://www.nobility.org/2013/04/25/columbus-raises-a-cross-in-hispaniola-and-miracles-follow/ , which happened before and after crossing oceans. So the whole Columbus story is fiction, and the Cortez and Pizarro and Balboa stories, etc. -- all the explorers in search of their "promised land" flowing with gold and silver, all copying Moses crossing the Red Sea and searching for new territory. All fiction.
And with each water and feeding miracle, there is one exorcism and two healing miracles that are to remind readers of the works of the prophets Elijah and Elisha and how Jesus surpasses them.
There are no exorcisms in the Elijah or Elisha stories, or in any Hebrew literature. These stories in the Gospel accounts pop up out of nowhere, with no explanation from any previous traditions or literature or legends.
But also, the prophets Elijah and Elisha were forgotten characters of no importance to Jews in the first century. Only after the Gospels were written did these characters suddenly become important to Christ believers who then learned of them for the first time. There is virtually NO mention of them in any Hebrew literature after their appearance centuries earlier in I-II Kings.
Virtually no mention of Elijah/Elisha in Jewish literature, after I-II Kings
The only serious exception to this is Sirach 48:1-11, but this is a small part of a long series of eulogies (chapters 44-50) to traditional Jewish heroes of the Bible, from Adam through the latter prophets.
There are only two mentions of Elijah in the Hebrew scriptures outside I-II Kings. One is Malachi 3:23 -- "Behold, I will send you Elijah the prophet before the coming of the great and terrible day of the LORD." The other is the mention in II Chronicles -- 21:12 (the only mention of Elijah in I-II Chronicles), which mistakenly names Elijah as the author of a letter to King Jehoram. Except for these two there is no mention of Elijah anywhere in the OT after II Kings. And no mention at all of Elisha.
In contrast to Elijah/Elisha, the prophets Samuel and Nathan are mentioned prominently in the Hebrew Bible outside of I-II Samuel and I-II Kings. Why does Chronicles omit any mention whatever of Elisha, and have only one obscure reference to Elijah, if these two prophets were important? They obviously were not. I.e., not until after 50 AD when the Gospels were written, and then, all of a sudden, Elijah appears as a major Jewish prophet.
Josephus, in 80-90 AD, includes Elijah/Elisha in his early histories, covering all the Hebrew Bible events. But it's interesting that there is no mention of them anywhere in all the earlier Jewish literature, other than the above references in II Chr. and Mal., which of course say nothing about any reported miracles, and Sirach 44, which is the only reference recognizing any miracle claims. So the Elijah/Elisha miracle-workers are almost totally ignored, outside I-II Kings, before the New Testament writings.
Note that this reference in Josephus fits the pattern of miracle stories starting to become important at the end of the 1st century AD. The new rash of miracle stories begins at roughly 100 AD, with possible earlier hints of it from 80 or 90. The
Book of Acts is the most obvious example, with its parade of new miracle stories, written 90-100 AD. And yet before this, 50 AD and earlier, there is a virtual blank, zero, of miracle stories in any of the literature, including virtually zero interest in Elijah and Elisha.
It is comical to watch Ferguson and Carrier and other debunkers trying to find miracle stories in this earlier period. It should be obvious to anyone who looks at the plain facts that something happened around 30-50 AD to cause a whole new wave of miracle stories to appear in history, beginning in the 50s with Paul's mention of the Jesus Resurrection. What caused this sudden change in the thinking and in the literature of that period?
Elijah DISSED by Philo the Alexandrian
In this period there is a passage in Philo the Alexandrian referring to the widow in I Kings 17 who encountered Elijah, but note how Philo plays down Elijah ("the prophet") and completely ignores his two miracles here:
And the woman who met the prophet, in the book of Kings, resembles this fact: "And she was a widow," not meaning by that, as we generally use the word, a woman when she is bereft of her husband, but that she is so, from being free from those passions which corrupt and destroy the soul, as Thamar is represented by Moses. For she also . . .
For the name Thamar, being interpreted, means the palm-tree. And every soul that is beginning to be widowed and devoid of evils, says to the prophet, "O, man of God! hast thou come to me to remind me of my iniquity and of my sin?" For he being inspired, and entering into the soul, and being filled with heaveny love, and being amazingly excited by the intolerable stimulus of heaven-inflicted frenzy . . .
The Works of Philo, Hendrickson Publishers, p. 169
Philo here quotes twice from I Kings 17, and yet he completely ignores two of Elijah's most important miracles reported here, having slight resemblance to those of Jesus, which shows how unimportant Elijah was to 1st-century Jews, especially anything to do with miracles. Instead Philo turns this scripture into a sermon on what widowhood means. This is a virtual put-down of miracle claims and almost a disrespect toward "the prophet" whose name is not worth mentioning.
(This Philo text is a REAL example of a Midrash, being an interpretation of a particular scripture text, which the Mark miracle stories are not.)
So, with Elijah/Elisha being so unimportant in 70 AD or earlier, virtually unknown to Jews, why would the Mark writer want to create a story based on them? On Moses, yes -- the name Moses is found everywhere in all the literature, but Elijah and Elisha are almost nonexistent after their appearance in I-II Kings.
Other prophets, especially Samuel and Nathan and Daniel, were more important and are mentioned in the Jewish literature of the period (outside of I-II Samuel and I-II Kings and Daniel). But Elijah and Elisha are completely ignored, and it makes no sense to say a Christ-believing Jew in 70 AD would use such nobody figures upon which to build a new miracle legend.
Rather, in reverse order, the Elijah/Elisha legend became popular AFTER the Gospels appeared, or as they were being written and the Jesus stories were circulating, because then Jews believing in Jesus became interested in miracle claims and searched back to their ancient scriptures for a precedent, in order to find ways to claim Jesus was anticipated by the ancient prophets.
Only one mention of Elijah/Elisha in all the Dead Sea Scrolls
Dead Sea Scrolls fragments 4Q382:
Fr. 2
... [And] Elisha went up. [When the sons of the prophets who were over at Jericho] saw [him over against them, they said, The spirit of Elijah rests over Elish]a. And they came to meet Elisha, [and bowed to the ground before him. And they said to him, Behold now, there are with your servants] fifty [strong] men; [pray, let them go, and seek your master; it may be that the spirit of the Lord has caught him up and cast him upon some mou]nta[in or into some valley].
At most this might contain an allusion to Elijah's being taken by the fiery chariot, but otherwise no mention of any miracles. So Elijah/Elisha as miracle-workers are almost 100% ignored in the Dead Sea Scrolls and other Jewish literature before the New Testament, while the names appear perhaps half a dozen times. (Of course they appear in the copy of I-II Kings in the Dead Sea Scrolls, which duplicate virtually the entire Hebrew Bible.)
Sirach 48 stands out as the only exception, containing eulogies to Elijah/Elisha, but also containing eulogies to many other Jewish figures, even some obscure figures (Phinehas, son of Eleazar -- 45:23, Caleb, son of Jephunneh -- 46:7, and Simon the priest, son of Jochanan -- 50:1). So this one writer includes Elijah/Elisha in his over-extensive list of Jewish heroes whom he eulogizes, covering 7 chapters.
. . . miracles that are to remind readers of the works of the prophets Elijah and Elisha and how Jesus surpasses them.
No, Jesus in the Gospels does NOT surpass them. They both allegedly performed many other miracles exceeding way beyond those of Jesus. Look at all the miracles they did which surpass those of Jesus in the Gospels:
- Jesus did not bring down fire from Heaven, as Elijah did, consuming the altar and stones and "lapping up the water" drenching the altar (I Kings 18:38).
- He did not bring heavy rain to end a drought, as Elijah did (I Kings 18:41-45).
- He did not bring down fire from Heaven to consume a company of 50 soldiers, like Elijah reportedly did two times (II Kings 1:9-12).
- He did not part the waters of the Jordan River (II Kings 2:8) or any other river, like Elijah did. And like Elisha also did (II Kings 2:14).
If the Gospel writers are saying Jesus surpassed Elijah and Elisha, why didn't they have him part the waters of the Jordan, like they did?
Look at some other Elisha miracles which surpass those of Jesus in the Gospels:
- Jesus did not purify the water of a whole town so the residents had clean drinking water for many years, as Elisha did (II Kings 2:19-22). This amazing feat far surpasses that of Jesus turning water into wine, which benefited only a few dozen party-goers at a wedding, for just one occasion only.
- Jesus did not summon two "she-bears" from the woods to rip apart 42 naughty children (II Kings 2:23-24). (No, on second thought, let's not bring that one up!)
- Jesus did not give fertility to a woman who needed a son, as Elisha did so that she later conceived (II Kings 4:14-17).
- Jesus did not strike blind a strong force of enemy soldiers coming to take him captive, and later open their eyes, like Elisha did (II Kings 6:13-20). All Jesus did was heal victims one at a time, sometimes 2 (blind men) simultaneously, but not a large number all at once, so Elisha had more power than Jesus to inflict and cure blindness (if we take literally those bizarre tales of II Kings, which a Christ-believer need not do).
So how can Ferguson claim the Jesus miracles are intended to remind readers "how Jesus surpasses" Elijah and Elisha? Again our debunker-scholar is just dogmatically driving home his ideological premise, contradicting the clear facts with more false logic and fiction of his own -- plus also pretending to psycho-analyze the Gospel writers and their readers, diagnosing them as needing a miracle-worker superior to Elijah/Elisha, which they obviously did not, and who obviously were not taking their Jesus stories from those earlier legends, as Ferguson fanatically insists, not only undermining his competence as a scholar but also practicing psychology without a license.
But in his bumbling manner, Ferguson does make a point: Jesus is superior to Elijah and Elisha, because for these 9th-century BC prophets we have virtually no evidence that they really did the reputed miracle acts. There is only one source for them, written almost 300 years later than they lived, so these reputed miracle-workers were never taken seriously by Jews, and no one later would have used them as a model for inventing a later miracle legend. We can assume these prophets (or this prophet) evolved in legend over those 200-300 years, as the original popular folk hero became mythologized over time and acquired a reputation of having performed supernatural wonders.
If one chooses to believe the claims anyway, it's not based on evidence, as belief in the miracle acts of Jesus is based on evidence.
(this Wall of Text to be continued)
