120 Reasons to Reject Christianity

[Lumpenproletariat]

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

(continued from previous Wall of Text)


There are no "parallels" of the Jesus miracle acts to anything earlier.

with one exception only, discussed below in detail half-way down this Text Wall

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)

The parallels between events in Jesus’ life to those in the lives of Moses . . .

What parallel is there to Moses?

. . . Moses leading his people through water towards the promised land, and feeding them with manna from heaven.

Is there supposed to be something connecting the fish-and-loaves miracle to Moses and the manna? There's no reason whatever to connect these, as if the Jesus story was inspired by the earlier manna story, to which it has no similarity, except that there's some kind of "magic food" in them.

Admittedly there's the "parallel" of the fish-and-loaves story to II Kings 4:42-44 (see farther down), but there's no connection whatever to the Moses-manna story. Just because it's connected to something Jewish and has magic food in it does not make it a "parallel" to the Moses/manna episode. You can't classify all magic food stories together and claim they're all derived from the Moses and manna story. This would mean that a 1950s TV cereal commercial showing kids eating Trix and then flying up in the air was inspired by the story of Moses and the manna from the sky. Or that the cartoons of Popeye getting extra power from eating spinach are commentaries on the Moses miracle in the Wilderness.

Or better, the opening scenes in the movie "Riverworld" show a magic food provided to people arriving at some kind of After-Life scenario. So, according to Ferguson, this early scene from "Riverworld" is a "Midrash" based on the Book of Exodus. This movie scene more closely resembles Moses and the manna than the story of Jesus and the fish-and-loaves.

Food miracles are not unique to the Bible. There are some other food miracle legends outside the Bible examples of Moses and Elijah/Elisha and Jesus.

Irish legend tells of a sea-god Manannan which could produce magic pigs to be eaten:

http://www.askaboutireland.ie/learn...a-in-irish-history/the-legend-of-manannan-ma/

Manannán carried more of his possessions in his crane bag: language, birds, hounds and very magical pigs. Any pig that was slaughtered for eating would magically appear in his crane bag again the next day!

Also the "good God" Dagda produced magic food:

http://symboldictionary.net/?p=958 The Dagda’s great Cauldron of Plenty was one of the four legendary treasures of Ireland, a magical object that provided an endless supply of tasty food and drink to the worthy.

There's also the cornucopia legend:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cornucopia Mythology offers multiple explanations of the origin of the cornucopia. One of the best-known involves the birth and nurturance of the infant Zeus, who had to be hidden from his devouring father Kronus. In a cave on Mount Ida on the island of Crete, baby Zeus was cared for and protected by a number of divine attendants, including the goat Amaltheia ("Nourishing Goddess"), who fed him with her milk. The suckling future king of the gods had unusual abilities and strength, and in playing with his nursemaid accidentally broke off one of her horns, which then had the divine power to provide unending nourishment, as the foster mother had to the god.

The Mahabharata contains a magic food story similar to that of Elisha, in which Krishna feeds a gathering of guests, and along with them the whole world for one day, using only one grain of rice. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Akshaya_Patra . Whenever this story originated, it's virtually certain it was not inspired by the Elisha story, though it resembles that story almost as much as the Jesus fish-and-loaves story.

And in Finnish legend there is a substance called Sampo, produced by the god Ilmarinen, who can produce almost anything. The Sampo in the Kalevala is "a quern or mill of some sort that made flour, salt, and gold out of thin air." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ilmarinen

The various magic food legends almost certainly are independent of each other, with different cultures having their own version of such stories, like the Flood legends, sprouting up in the storytelling of different cultures, originating from reflections on earlier disasters or whatever experiences happened in their history and are preserved in oral tradition. The Moses manna story bears no more similarity to something in the Gospel accounts than any of the above magic food legends.

You could say all these magic food legends are similar or "parallel" to each other, since they all have someone eating magic food, but there's nothing to show a dependency of any of them on any of the others. And all can be dismissed as fiction for various reasons, one of which is that for every one of them there is only one source, and also the source for the legend is dated many centuries after the event occurred (if it's about an event which allegedly happened).

But none can be dismissed as having been derived from some other magic food story, or being "parallel" to it or resembling it. They're all "parallel" to each other, in a loose sense, but this is trivial and says nothing about the credibility of the alleged magic event.

You can just as easily connect the Jesus fish-and-loaves to these legends as to the Moses-and-manna story.

There is only one earlier miracle story which is "parallel" to a Jesus miracle story in the Gospels:

The best Jesus-miracle-debunker argument -- first-prize winner

Is the Fish-and-Loaves miracle a copycat story stolen from II Kings?​

The story of Prophet Elisha multiplying loaves (II Kings 4:42-44) is the only serious example of a parallel to a Jesus miracle act. If there were many other such Jesus parallels to earlier miracle stories, a debunker like Ferguson could make a case that the Jesus miracle stories are taken from ancient legends rather than from actual 1st-century events. But there's no other such parallel to the earlier legends, leaving us with no real explanation where the Jesus miracle stories originated.

It's easy to explain the Jesus miracle acts as real historical events to which perhaps fictional elements from earlier legends were added in some cases. But it's impossible to explain the stories as fictions based on something earlier, because this one story is the only one which has any resemblance to something earlier.

If the miracle acts really did happen, then it's very easy to explain how some legend-building could follow soon after, within only a few years, resulting in some expansion on the original story. But there is no way to explain how the Jesus miracle stories originated as fiction built upon earlier legends. Not only is there no earlier legend to connect them to, but also there has to be an explanation why the writers would choose Jesus to be the object of such storytelling -- i.e., why they chose ONLY this one person and no one else to be the object of such myth-building.

One could make the case that this one Jesus miracle story originated as a copycat version of the earlier Elisha story, because of the similarity, but this is the only example of such a similarity.

Yet for each additional parallel story -- if there were several such examples -- the Jesus stories would become suspicious as possible products of copying from earlier stories. Ferguson's attempt to see the Jesus boat ride on the Sea of Galilee as parallel to Moses crossing the Red Sea is laughable and not worthy of comment (except as a joke, and also to point out Ferguson's desperation to find a "parallel" when none exists). Only the multiplying of loaves with some "left over" afterwards shows a serious parallel of the Jesus miracles to anything earlier.

This Elisha story is unique as a parallel to a Jesus miracle act because of 2 specific similarities they share, and these details are an inherent part of the described miracle act.

Here's the Elisha story (generally unknown to 1st-century Jews):

II Kings 4:42-44
42 A man came from Ba'al-shal'ishah, bringing the man of God bread of the first fruits, twenty loaves of barley, and fresh ears of grain in his sack. And Eli'sha said, "Give to the men, that they may eat." 43 But his servant said, "How am I to set this before a hundred men?" So he repeated, "Give them to the men, that they may eat, for thus says the LORD, 'They shall eat and have some left.'" 44 So he set it before them. And they ate, and had some left, according to the word of the LORD.

And here's the first Mark story (feeding the 5,000):

Mark 6:35-44
35 And when it grew late, his disciples came to him and said, "This is a lonely place, and the hour is now late; 36 send them away, to go into the country and villages round about and buy themselves something to eat." 37 But he answered them, "You give them something to eat." And they said to him, "Shall we go and buy two hundred denarii worth of bread, and give it to them to eat?" 38 And he said to them, "How many loaves have you? Go and see." And when they had found out, they said, "Five, and two fish." 39 Then he commanded them all to sit down by companies upon the green grass. 40 So they sat down in groups, by hundreds and by fifties. 41 And taking the five loaves and the two fish he looked up to heaven, and blessed, and broke the loaves, and gave them to the disciples to set before the people; and he divided the two fish among them all. 42 And they all ate and were satisfied. 43 And they took up twelve baskets full of broken pieces and of the fish. 44 And those who ate the loaves were five thousand men.

And the second Mark story (8:1-9) is similar.

There are 2 main points of similarity in the stories.

• 1st similarity -- In each story there's a need to feed a crowd but no food or not enough, so the servant/disciples put a question to the miracle-worker:

II Kings: But his servant said, "How am I to set this before a hundred men?"

Mark 6: And they said to him, "Shall we go and buy two hundred denarii worth of bread, and give it to them to eat?" Or the ch. 8 version:

Mark 8: And his disciples answered him, "How can one feed these men with bread here in the desert?"


• 2nd similarity -- After the miracle and the people have eaten, there's food left over:

II Kings: And they ate, and had some left, according to the word of the LORD.

Mark 6: And they all ate and were satisfied. And they took up twelve baskets full of broken pieces and of the fish. Or the ch. 8 version:

Mark 8: And they ate, and were satisfied; and they took up the broken pieces left over, seven baskets full.

The similarities might be explained as pure coincidence, or maybe the 1st-century Gospel writer borrowed from the earlier II Kings story. However, this borrowing from an earlier Jewish story cannot be the whole explanation for the later fish-and-loaves story, because this II Kings Elisha story was too obscure and unknown for a 1st-century Jewish story-teller to use.

If no event at all happened and the Jesus story is total fiction, then why didn't the writer instead copy the Moses-manna story rather than this totally obscure Elisha story? It's more easily explained as a real event, where Jesus fed a large number, and since it much more resembled the Elisha story than the Moses manna story, the 1st-century writer modified the real event to incorporate the elements of the Elisha story, thus creating a story easier to believe as a divine event rooted in the ancient traditions. But if it were total fiction, it makes no sense that the 1st-century story-teller would choose the unknown Elisha story rather than the Moses story as his model.

The author's motivation was to connect the new Jesus story to something ancient but which more closely resembled the real 1st-century event which the writer was sure happened and wanted to communicate in the most effective way. If he didn't believe a real event of his own time had happened, back in 30 AD, but was just making up a fiction story, he would have used the Moses manna story as his model rather than the Elisha story.

A further connection to the Elisha story is the term "barley loaves" used in John 6:9 and in II Kings 4:42. This term occurs nowhere else in the Bible except in the Elisha story and in John's version of the fish-and-loaves story. Of course John is later, and this term was not in the original version of the story.

Elisha was not important for Jews in the 1st century, or rather, only AFTER the Jesus miracle reports were circulating did Elisha become worthy of note. There is nothing about him in all the Jewish literature after II Kings, other than in the lengthy listing of Jewish heroes in Sirach 44-50, which includes some obscure figures. Whereas Moses was the famous celebrity honored by all Jews, mentioned in all the literature, so it would make far more sense for a Mark (fiction) writer to have Jesus bring manna down from the sky, to impress all the Moses admirers, instead of copying a story about Elisha, who was an unknown.


(this Wall of Text to be continued)

 

[Lion IRC]

I gave a+rep to Mr Lump because this is not 'spew' it's substance.
And he's spot on that scholarly bible debate, by its nature, needs walls of text so to speak.
Ipetrich calling it 'spew' is an UNintellectual response.

 

[Lion IRC]

I would contend that if there were no parallels between Jesus and the major prophets that would detract from His authenticity. Parallels don't imply a copycat. Why wouldn't two great men BOTH do great things?

 

[DBT]

Scholarly or not, the points being raised have been refuted many times over. Claims that miracles happened, regardless of the source, not being evidence that miracles did indeed happen, and so on......

 

[Juma]

(continued from previous Wall of Text)


There are no "parallels" of the Jesus miracle acts to anything earlier.

with one exception only, discussed below in detail half-way down this Text Wall




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.



(resuming notes from this link)

The parallels between events in Jesus’ life to those in the lives of Moses . . .

What parallel is there to Moses?

. . . Moses leading his people through water towards the promised land, and feeding them with manna from heaven.

Is there supposed to be something connecting the fish-and-loaves miracle to Moses and the manna? There's no reason whatever to connect these, as if the Jesus story was inspired by the earlier manna story, to which it has no similarity, except that there's some kind of "magic food" in them.

Admittedly there's the "parallel" of the fish-and-loaves story to II Kings 4:42-44 (see farther down), but there's no connection whatever to the Moses-manna story. Just because it's connected to something Jewish and has magic food in it does not make it a "parallel" to the Moses/manna episode. You can't classify all magic food stories together and claim they're all derived from the Moses and manna story. This would mean that a 1950s TV cereal commercial showing kids eating Trix and then flying up in the air was inspired by the story of Moses and the manna from the sky. Or that the cartoons of Popeye getting extra power from eating spinach are commentaries on the Moses miracle in the Wilderness.

Or better, the opening scenes in the movie "Riverworld" show a magic food provided to people arriving at some kind of After-Life scenario. So, according to Ferguson, this early scene from "Riverworld" is a "Midrash" based on the Book of Exodus. This movie scene more closely resembles Moses and the manna than the story of Jesus and the fish-and-loaves.

Food miracles are not unique to the Bible. There are some other food miracle legends outside the Bible examples of Moses and Elijah/Elisha and Jesus.

Irish legend tells of a sea-god Manannan which could produce magic pigs to be eaten:

http://www.askaboutireland.ie/learn...a-in-irish-history/the-legend-of-manannan-ma/

Manannán carried more of his possessions in his crane bag: language, birds, hounds and very magical pigs. Any pig that was slaughtered for eating would magically appear in his crane bag again the next day!

Also the "good God" Dagda produced magic food:

http://symboldictionary.net/?p=958 The Dagda’s great Cauldron of Plenty was one of the four legendary treasures of Ireland, a magical object that provided an endless supply of tasty food and drink to the worthy.

There's also the cornucopia legend:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cornucopia Mythology offers multiple explanations of the origin of the cornucopia. One of the best-known involves the birth and nurturance of the infant Zeus, who had to be hidden from his devouring father Kronus. In a cave on Mount Ida on the island of Crete, baby Zeus was cared for and protected by a number of divine attendants, including the goat Amaltheia ("Nourishing Goddess"), who fed him with her milk. The suckling future king of the gods had unusual abilities and strength, and in playing with his nursemaid accidentally broke off one of her horns, which then had the divine power to provide unending nourishment, as the foster mother had to the god.

The Mahabharata contains a magic food story similar to that of Elisha, in which Krishna feeds a gathering of guests, and along with them the whole world for one day, using only one grain of rice. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Akshaya_Patra . Whenever this story originated, it's virtually certain it was not inspired by the Elisha story, though it resembles that story almost as much as the Jesus fish-and-loaves story.

And in Finnish legend there is a substance called Sampo, produced by the god Ilmarinen, who can produce almost anything. The Sampo in the Kalevala is "a quern or mill of some sort that made flour, salt, and gold out of thin air." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ilmarinen

The various magic food legends almost certainly are independent of each other, with different cultures having their own version of such stories, like the Flood legends, sprouting up in the storytelling of different cultures, originating from reflections on earlier disasters or whatever experiences happened in their history and are preserved in oral tradition. The Moses manna story bears no more similarity to something in the Gospel accounts than any of the above magic food legends.

You could say all these magic food legends are similar or "parallel" to each other, since they all have someone eating magic food, but there's nothing to show a dependency of any of them on any of the others. And all can be dismissed as fiction for various reasons, one of which is that for every one of them there is only one source, and also the source for the legend is dated many centuries after the event occurred (if it's about an event which allegedly happened).

But none can be dismissed as having been derived from some other magic food story, or being "parallel" to it or resembling it. They're all "parallel" to each other, in a loose sense, but this is trivial and says nothing about the credibility of the alleged magic event.

You can just as easily connect the Jesus fish-and-loaves to these legends as to the Moses-and-manna story.

There is only one earlier miracle story which is "parallel" to a Jesus miracle story in the Gospels:

The best Jesus-miracle-debunker argument -- first-prize winner

Is the Fish-and-Loaves miracle a copycat story stolen from II Kings?​

The story of Prophet Elisha multiplying loaves (II Kings 4:42-44) is the only serious example of a parallel to a Jesus miracle act. If there were many other such Jesus parallels to earlier miracle stories, a debunker like Ferguson could make a case that the Jesus miracle stories are taken from ancient legends rather than from actual 1st-century events. But there's no other such parallel to the earlier legends, leaving us with no real explanation where the Jesus miracle stories originated.

It's easy to explain the Jesus miracle acts as real historical events to which perhaps fictional elements from earlier legends were added in some cases. But it's impossible to explain the stories as fictions based on something earlier, because this one story is the only one which has any resemblance to something earlier.

If the miracle acts really did happen, then it's very easy to explain how some legend-building could follow soon after, within only a few years, resulting in some expansion on the original story. But there is no way to explain how the Jesus miracle stories originated as fiction built upon earlier legends. Not only is there no earlier legend to connect them to, but also there has to be an explanation why the writers would choose Jesus to be the object of such storytelling -- i.e., why they chose ONLY this one person and no one else to be the object of such myth-building.

One could make the case that this one Jesus miracle story originated as a copycat version of the earlier Elisha story, because of the similarity, but this is the only example of such a similarity.

Yet for each additional parallel story -- if there were several such examples -- the Jesus stories would become suspicious as possible products of copying from earlier stories. Ferguson's attempt to see the Jesus boat ride on the Sea of Galilee as parallel to Moses crossing the Red Sea is laughable and not worthy of comment (except as a joke, and also to point out Ferguson's desperation to find a "parallel" when none exists). Only the multiplying of loaves with some "left over" afterwards shows a serious parallel of the Jesus miracles to anything earlier.

This Elisha story is unique as a parallel to a Jesus miracle act because of 2 specific similarities they share, and these details are an inherent part of the described miracle act.

Here's the Elisha story (generally unknown to 1st-century Jews):

II Kings 4:42-44
42 A man came from Ba'al-shal'ishah, bringing the man of God bread of the first fruits, twenty loaves of barley, and fresh ears of grain in his sack. And Eli'sha said, "Give to the men, that they may eat." 43 But his servant said, "How am I to set this before a hundred men?" So he repeated, "Give them to the men, that they may eat, for thus says the LORD, 'They shall eat and have some left.'" 44 So he set it before them. And they ate, and had some left, according to the word of the LORD.

And here's the first Mark story (feeding the 5,000):

Mark 6:35-44
35 And when it grew late, his disciples came to him and said, "This is a lonely place, and the hour is now late; 36 send them away, to go into the country and villages round about and buy themselves something to eat." 37 But he answered them, "You give them something to eat." And they said to him, "Shall we go and buy two hundred denarii worth of bread, and give it to them to eat?" 38 And he said to them, "How many loaves have you? Go and see." And when they had found out, they said, "Five, and two fish." 39 Then he commanded them all to sit down by companies upon the green grass. 40 So they sat down in groups, by hundreds and by fifties. 41 And taking the five loaves and the two fish he looked up to heaven, and blessed, and broke the loaves, and gave them to the disciples to set before the people; and he divided the two fish among them all. 42 And they all ate and were satisfied. 43 And they took up twelve baskets full of broken pieces and of the fish. 44 And those who ate the loaves were five thousand men.

And the second Mark story (8:1-9) is similar.

There are 2 main points of similarity in the stories.

• 1st similarity -- In each story there's a need to feed a crowd but no food or not enough, so the servant/disciples put a question to the miracle-worker:

II Kings: But his servant said, "How am I to set this before a hundred men?"

Mark 6: And they said to him, "Shall we go and buy two hundred denarii worth of bread, and give it to them to eat?" Or the ch. 8 version:

Mark 8: And his disciples answered him, "How can one feed these men with bread here in the desert?"


• 2nd similarity -- After the miracle and the people have eaten, there's food left over:

II Kings: And they ate, and had some left, according to the word of the LORD.

Mark 6: And they all ate and were satisfied. And they took up twelve baskets full of broken pieces and of the fish. Or the ch. 8 version:

Mark 8: And they ate, and were satisfied; and they took up the broken pieces left over, seven baskets full.

The similarities might be explained as pure coincidence, or maybe the 1st-century Gospel writer borrowed from the earlier II Kings story. However, this borrowing from an earlier Jewish story cannot be the whole explanation for the later fish-and-loaves story, because this II Kings Elisha story was too obscure and unknown for a 1st-century Jewish story-teller to use.

If no event at all happened and the Jesus story is total fiction, then why didn't the writer instead copy the Moses-manna story rather than this totally obscure Elisha story? It's more easily explained as a real event, where Jesus fed a large number, and since it much more resembled the Elisha story than the Moses manna story, the 1st-century writer modified the real event to incorporate the elements of the Elisha story, thus creating a story easier to believe as a divine event rooted in the ancient traditions. But if it were total fiction, it makes no sense that the 1st-century story-teller would choose the unknown Elisha story rather than the Moses story as his model.

The author's motivation was to connect the new Jesus story to something ancient but which more closely resembled the real 1st-century event which the writer was sure happened and wanted to communicate in the most effective way. If he didn't believe a real event of his own time had happened, back in 30 AD, but was just making up a fiction story, he would have used the Moses manna story as his model rather than the Elisha story.

A further connection to the Elisha story is the term "barley loaves" used in John 6:9 and in II Kings 4:42. This term occurs nowhere else in the Bible except in the Elisha story and in John's version of the fish-and-loaves story. Of course John is later, and this term was not in the original version of the story.

Elisha was not important for Jews in the 1st century, or rather, only AFTER the Jesus miracle reports were circulating did Elisha become worthy of note. There is nothing about him in all the Jewish literature after II Kings, other than in the lengthy listing of Jewish heroes in Sirach 44-50, which includes some obscure figures. Whereas Moses was the famous celebrity honored by all Jews, mentioned in all the literature, so it would make far more sense for a Mark (fiction) writer to have Jesus bring manna down from the sky, to impress all the Moses admirers, instead of copying a story about Elisha, who was an unknown.


(this Wall of Text to be continued)

If you invent a hero you definitely do not people to recognize that you stole the miracle story but you would want stories of same type and geist. That is whh you dont copy well known miracles.
#dontneedawalloftext

 

[Lumpenproletariat]

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

(continued from previous Wall of Text)

Still searching for those Jesus "parallels"
(Report all Jesus-parallel sightings to this thread for processing.)​

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 the 1st link:

This actually means that Mark’s narrative is being built around earlier outlines of Jesus’ miracles . . .

Yes, this makes sense, that the Mark of 70 AD (or earlier sources for this writer) built a narrative which conformed as much as possible to earlier Jesus reports he had, either written or oral. So if a fiction element is to be added, it must conform as much as possible to the earlier sources he had, which he believed were correct. The miracle stories were in the earlier sources and were believed to be true.

. . . earlier outlines of Jesus' miracles (suggesting that even the mundane narrative details may have been invented to narrativize the miracles).

But only in cases where those mundane details were not known (which they often were not), in which case the writer gave it "his best shot" at conforming to the reports he had. You could say he wanted to "narrativize the miracles" in the sense that the writer believed those events did happen and he tried his best to provide the actual setting in which they took place. Nothing about this implies that the basic miracle stories are fiction. That idea comes only from the doctrine that there can be no miracle events -- it does not come from any of the evidence or known facts.

This is the basic point to be understood from all this: All the evidence is that the reported miracle acts of Jesus did really happen, as factual, or as real historical events. But one might disbelieve them by rejecting the evidence as insufficient, based on the premise that such events can never happen, regardless of the evidence. Or, regardless that the evidence is more than enough to believe claims of normal or non-miracle events.

But we can tell further that these miracles were themselves based on parallels with the Old Testament, such as the alleged miracles of Moses.

No, because if that were the case, the Mark writer would have provided us a manna-from-heaven story about Jesus, which he did not. It's true we have in this one case (the fish-and-loaves) a story resembling the Elisha story -- only one example, but nothing else resembling the Old Testament stories. Other than this one Elisha story we have nothing but some language borrowed from the OT and some prophecies, not miracle acts of Jesus resembling earlier such miracle claims.

There are virtually NO Old Testament miracle stories used by the Gospel writers to base the Jesus miracles on. One Elisha story only, and no others, can be cited as being similar or parallel to the Jesus miracle stories. One case only, i.e., a somewhat dubious one, does not establish a pattern.

The only explanation for these stories having ties to the OT is that the Jesus events did happen within a Jewish environment, and then some mythologizing took place subsequently in which some connections were made to the OT prophets. So the Bethlehem and other Messiah prophecies were later added to the original story of Jesus the miracle-worker. And it's true that there is something in the Elisha story (II Kings 4:42-44) which conspicuously resembles the Jesus fish-and-loaves story, but this is the only OT miracle having any parallel in the Gospel accounts. One single example does not explain the whole Jesus miracle legend.

That speaks strongly in favor of the hypothesis of legendary development, . . .

OK, some such "development" did occur, but no fictional origin of the Jesus miracle acts -- no evidence indicates that. There was normal "legendary development" continuing on even into later centuries with the appearance of new "Gospel" accounts and "epistles" (apocryphal NT) and so on, but there had to be an original Jesus figure who did something real and significant in order for the later legends to develop.

The miracle claims could not have popped up suddenly in 50 or 60 or 70 AD without an original person who did something real and noteworthy to which the legends later could be added. A mythologized hero legend requires an original real historical person who was the object to which the legends later became attached. And no totally fictional character was possible within only a few decades.

. . . since we can tell that stories about Jesus were being made up to parallel him with OT figures.

No, not the miracle stories in the Gospel accounts, because if that were so, we'd see Jesus parting the Sea of Galilee instead of using a boat to go across it. Or we'd see him bring fire down from heaven like Elijah did, and other such acts from the OT but absent in the Gospel accounts. The miracle acts of Jesus are not "parallel" to the OT figures. Unless "parallel" has the trivial meaning that ALL claims of heroic deeds of any kind and at any time or place in history are "parallel" to all other such claims.

If that's what "parallel" means, then the legend of Ted Williams is "parallel" to that of Hercules.

No, what we can tell is that the Jesus legend, evolving from the early miracle claims before 60 AD (probably 30 AD), likely became modified to fit him in with the OT prophets. We do not see new miracle stories being made up about him having any special OT connection (discounting the miracle birth, which is a silly example, not about an act performed by the miracle-worker). The one Elisha story (II Kings 4:42) is the closest there is, and if there were many others (and especially connected to Moses), you might make a case that the Jesus stories originated from the OT. But there are no others, especially nothing resembling Moses, who was the real OT hero rather than Elijah/Elisha.

There are three Elijah/Elisha miracle healings, having no resemblance to Jesus other than simply that they are about miracle healings, and also the one Elisha food story having a resemblance, but otherwise the many Elijah/Elisha miracles have no resemblance to the Jesus miracle stories. Which indicates that the latter originated from some other source than the OT stories.

Plus, the Elijah/Elisha stories were virtually irrelevant in the 1st century AD, and these 2 prophets were virtual unknowns. Jews cared nothing about them, and probably 99% of them never heard of either prophet. And yet these are the ones whose reported miracle acts come closest to having any resemblance to the Jesus miracle acts. It's because of this that Elijah then became a famous prophet in the late 1st century AD but was ignored earlier. It's Elijah's fame which is derived from the Jesus miracle acts of the 1st century AD, and not the Jesus miracle stories which are derived from the Elijah/Elisha stories.

Elijah today would be a nobody had it not been for the Jesus miracle acts reported in the Gospels in the 1st century AD. Those 1st-century events are what has made Elijah famous.

Where are there any earlier reported EXORCISM CURES?​

Why is Jesus the only reported exorcist whose cures are documented in written accounts near the time of the alleged events?

What is the earlier source for these reports of demoniacs being cured? No such source exists, no earlier "parallel" of any kind which can explain these 1st-century claims.

Scholars generally agree that these accounts are an essential and early part of the Jesus legend. Whatever these acts were, they are conspicuous and unique to the Jesus legend and have no explanation to be found in anything earlier.

We can easily explain what really happened, but there is no explanation how these could be fictional accounts which someone made up. There are NO earlier such stories in Jewish or pagan literature. There are only descriptions of rituals to purify victims or free them from demons, but no reported cures. I.e., where a crowd of onlookers sees a healer suddenly cure such a victim, who then returns to normal.

The belief in demons was already common, and was incorporated into these reports of Jesus. But there were no reported cures like the amazing examples in the Gospel accounts.

Though demon-possession was superstition, mental illness or derangement was real and common, and all the evidence is that Jesus had a unique power to cure this kind of sickness.

It should also be noted that these are pre-Gospel traditions, meaning that we can detect legendary development surrounding Jesus before the Gospels were even written.

Whatever legendary development evolved could never have happened if there had not been a real Jesus miracle-worker person who originated this legend. If the legend could be inspired by only the earlier Jewish legends of the OT, then we should see other Messiah figures than only this Jesus of the Gospel accounts. If there was no real Jesus miracle-worker person being the origin of the 1st-century Gospel miracles, it means that somehow it was easy for a fictional miracle-worker to appear, caused by the earlier legends, meaning we would have other examples of such legends in addition to this one, and "Gospel" writings of some kind about those other Messiah legends, or miracle-worker legends, which also would have been inspired by the OT Jewish legends. But there are no others. Why is there only this one?

Every potential Messiah-seeking crusader or writer zeroed in on this one person only, placed in about 30 AD, being first in Galilee, then going to Jerusalem and being killed there. That's the only Messiah who pops up throughout many centuries of Jewish history, and no others, i.e., none reportedly doing miracles and documented in writings from the time. Which makes no sense if the only cause of such a new Messiah legend was the ancient Jewish writings/prophecies. If that were the cause of this 1st-century legend, there would have to be at least a dozen other Messiah legends rather than only this one. Surely John the Baptist should also have been made into a Jewish Messiah, and also many other famous Jewish celebrities. And yet there's no other reported miracle-Messiah figure. Why?

. . . we can detect legendary development surrounding Jesus before the Gospels were even written.

That definitely makes sense, IF the basic miracle stories are true, because this then explains why he became the object of legend-building. But if he did not do those miracle acts, including his resurrection, then we have no explanation why he became mythologized into a miracle-working messiah savior hero who was really fiction. There are no other examples of a human being turned into a deity like this in only 30 years or so. Your theory has to explain this absence of any other "messiahs" than this one only.

So, what we can detect is an already-existing miracle-worker (or reported miracle-worker), before the Gospels were written, resembling virtually nothing previous and who cannot be explained by anything previous, and this real historical figure then explains whatever "legendary development" took place earlier than Mark was written, and later as well.


(this Wall of Text to be continued)

 

[Cheerful Charlie]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oenotropae
[h=1]Oenotropae[/h] From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia


Elais redirects here; for the genus of oil palms see Elaeis
"Oeno" redirects here. For the Pacific island, see Oeno Island.

"Spermo" redirects here. For the moth genus, see Spermo (moth).

In Greek mythology, the Oenotropae (Ancient Greek: Οἰνοτρόπαι, "the women who change (into) wine") or Oenotrophae (Ancient Greek: Οἰνοτρόφαι, the "Winegrowers") were the three daughters of Anius.^[1]
The Oenotropae included: Spermo (Ancient Greek: Σπερμώ, "seed"), goddess of grain; Oeno or Oino (Ancient Greek: Οἰνώ, "wine"), goddess of wine; and Elais (Ancient Greek: Ἐλαΐς, "seed"), goddess of oil.^[1][2]

According to the Bibliotheca, their great-grandfather was Dionysus, and he gave them the power to change water into wine, grass into wheat, and berries into olives. For this reason no one around them ever had to starve.^[3] According to other sources, however, the daughters were devotees of Dionysus, and the god rewarded them with the extraordinary ability to produce oil, corn, and wine from the ground or merely by touch.^[1]


---

Various mythologies make up miraculous tall tales and always have. Why should we take tales of Jesus turning water into wine or multiplying fishes and loaves any more seriously that Virgil's tales of the oenotrophae in the Aeneid?

 

[Juma]

(this Wall of Text bullshit to be continued)

fixed it for you.

 

[Lumpenproletariat]

To judge if it's fact or fiction, you must consider the evidence, not just impose your dogmatic premise.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oenotropae
[h=1]Oenotropae[/h] From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia


Elais redirects here; for the genus of oil palms see Elaeis
"Oeno" redirects here. For the Pacific island, see Oeno Island.

"Spermo" redirects here. For the moth genus, see Spermo (moth).

In Greek mythology, the Oenotropae (Ancient Greek: Οἰνοτρόπαι, "the women who change (into) wine") or Oenotrophae (Ancient Greek: Οἰνοτρόφαι, the "Winegrowers") were the three daughters of Anius.^[1]
The Oenotropae included: Spermo (Ancient Greek: Σπερμώ, "seed"), goddess of grain; Oeno or Oino (Ancient Greek: Οἰνώ, "wine"), goddess of wine; and Elais (Ancient Greek: Ἐλαΐς, "seed"), goddess of oil.^[1][2]

According to the Bibliotheca, their great-grandfather was Dionysus, and he gave them the power to change water into wine, grass into wheat, and berries into olives. For this reason no one around them ever had to starve.^[3] According to other sources, however, the daughters were devotees of Dionysus, and the god rewarded them with the extraordinary ability to produce oil, corn, and wine from the ground or merely by touch.^[1]


---

Various mythologies make up miraculous tall tales and always have.

But in all the examples you cite, those tales required many centuries to develop and become part of popular belief. These are beliefs about ancient gods/heroes who either didn't ever live at all, or if they did live it was 1000+ years or more in the past, before the beliefs appeared and were recorded. Fiction miracle stories about the ancient heroes can evolve over such a long period, in legend-building, or storytelling, or mythologizing. But they cannot appear suddenly, in only a generation or a few decades.

Why should we take tales of Jesus turning water into wine or multiplying fishes and loaves any more seriously than Virgil's tales of the oenotrophae in the Aeneid?

Because the Jesus miracle acts were recorded in 4 sources in 70 years or less.

The water-into-wine is in only one source (John) and so is less believable. But the fish-and-loaves and the miracle healing acts are in 4 sources, which makes them much more credible, having more evidence than many historical facts we take for granted.

Whereas stories of the ancient pagan gods/heroes are in no sources at all dated any time close to when the events allegedly happened.

The ancient pagan miracle stories are rejected not because they are MIRACLE stories (proving they must be fiction), but because there is no evidence for them which can be taken seriously. It is not a fundamental premise of history or science or logic that all miracle stories per se have to be fiction. The credibility of claims is based mainly on the extent of the evidence, not dogmas that certain kinds of claims (like miracles) must be false regardless of any evidence.

 

[Lumpenproletariat]

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

(continued from previous Wall 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 the notes from this link:

Likewise, NT scholar Dennis MacDonald has argued, through mimesis criticism, that a number of the episodes in the Gospels may be based around earlier Greek mythology, particularly episodes in the Odyssey.

Some episodes, yes, but none of the Jesus miracle acts are based on these.


Is Jesus a product of Greek mythology?

It's true that Mark attaches some Homer symbols to the Jesus stories, but again, these presuppose an actual 1st-century miracle-worker UNlike Odysseus or anyone earlier, i.e., the historical Jesus person, who then became depicted in Mark as having some elements from the earlier legends of Odysseus.

Some such earlier symbols did become attached to him, but the actual 1st-century miracle-worker had to really exist in order for there to be a figure to whom those symbols could become attached by later writers. Without the actual 1st-century miracle-worker at around 30 AD, there is no explanation for the later legend-building, such as connecting him to Odysseus.

Also, none of the Jesus miracle acts are connected to the Odysseus character.

It should be noted that, while mimesis of OT literature is widely accepted among NT scholars, mimesis of Greek epic is far more controversial. If MacDonald is correct that a number of characters and episodes within the Gospels are based on earlier Greek literature, however, . . .

Ferguson is getting carried away here. It's not true that "a number of characters and episodes within the Gospels" are from Greek legends. He's exaggerating and needs to get a grip. There are 2 or 3 examples of this in Mark. Not several, and probably only in Mark, and not lengthy whole episodes, but only short passages.

if . . . a number of characters and episodes within the Gospels are based on earlier Greek literature, however, then this would also cast doubt on whether such content is derived from actual historical events.

No, exactly the opposite is the case -- it INcreases the likelihood of the real 1st-century miracle-worker being the origin of the Gospel accounts. Yes, some previous fictional elements were added to this historical Jesus figure. But this fact makes it more likely that there was a real 1st-century miracle-worker to whom the earlier symbols could be added. Such symbols were more likely to be attached to a REAL person who was recognized as having superhuman elements.

If Jesus was a real historical figure recognized as superhuman, why wouldn't hellenistic writers also want to seize upon him as an object to connect their ideas to? They were more likely to connect these ideas to a real person having real recognition.

Obviously the "Logos" theme was borrowed from Hellenism, and various gnostics also added their ideas, like in the Gospel of Thomas. Though there are virtually no Greek miracle myths added to him, just as there are virtually no OT miracles added to him, yet there are symbols and language borrowed from Jewish and Greek sources.

Everyone wanted to claim this Jesus Christ person, because he had become a widely-reputed miracle-worker, so that anything attached to him then acquired greater credibility. He was distinct from other reputed miracle-workers in that there was evidence of his acts, in widely-circulating stories being recorded and copied, plus oral accounts.

Today the debunkers are baffled that they can find no other reputed miracle-workers, either earlier or later, for which there is any serious evidence, even though they rack their brains out searching for such evidence, and they produce ludicrous examples, like Apollonius of Tyana and others, in a pathetic attempt to find something with credibility. And they resort to making up stories, like Ferguson blurting out:

Many ancient historians report miracles that are far better attested and independently corroborated than those in the Gospels. The historians Tacitus (Ann. 6.20), Suetonius (Gal. 4), and Cassius Dio (64.1) all independently corroborate that the emperor Tiberius used his knowledge of astrology to predict the future emperor Galba’s reign.

WHAT A LAUGH this example is, using for his example a prediction which came true, which he here calls a "miracle" as though a prediction coming true is an act of power comparable to Jesus healing the blind or the lepers or raising the dead. Obviously there were no other cases of miracle acts supported by evidence or he would offer something serious, instead of using such a pathetic example, pretending it's a "miracle" to make a prediction which later comes true.

By using such a sick example of a "miracle" to make his case, Ferguson here really disproves his point and firmly establishes that there is no other reputed miracle-worker in antiquity, other than Jesus in the Gospels, for whom there is evidence. If there were any other that comes close, he would give it instead of this phony reference to the Galba prophecy which came true like so many predictions come true as a lucky guess.


(this Wall of Text to be continued)

 

[Lumpenproletariat]

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)

[8] For an in-depth analysis of how the Matthean and Lukan accounts of Jesus’ birth contain irreconcilable chronological contradictions, in addition to historical implausibilities, see ancient historian Richard Carrier’s “The Date of the Nativity in Luke.”

How many times must the Bethlehem dead horse be beaten? Is this all the Ferguson/Carrier debunker crusade can come up with?

The two Bethlehem accounts are the easy target, again and again. And yet, this birth legend, even if fiction, is further evidence that the basic miracle acts of Jesus -- the healings and the resurrection -- are probably true events, because they explain the later legend-building which took place (i.e., virgin birth etc.), for which there is otherwise no explanation. Why was this legend connected to Jesus and to no one else? What did he do to make himself become this object for the Messiah symbols to be attached to?

Why is it that Ferguson/Carrier must keep dragging out this Bethlehem-virgin-birth polemic again and again, thus showing only that they have no evidence to offer against the real miracles of Jesus?

Without the Jesus miracle acts as actual historical events, forming the core of the miracle legend, there is no explanation why later traditions like the virgin birth and Star of Bethlehem became added to the original story. It's ludicrous how debunkers like Ferguson and Carrier can do nothing but keep falling back on their virgin-birth-and-Bethlehem-bashing babble.

[9] It should also be noted that many of the contradictions in the Gospels are not accidental discrepancies, but rather intentional alterations and differences between the authors. NT scholars have long known through redaction criticism that many of the changes that the later Gospels make to Mark, for example, not only borrow Mark’s material, but also change the order of events. As NT scholar L. Michael White (Scripting Jesus, pp. ix-xi) explains:

[E]ach of the Gospel authors has woven such episodes into the story in distinctive ways, changing not only the running order of the narrative, but also certain cause-and-effect relationships within each story.

Which is normal for reporting real events for which there are conflicting versions. None of the Gospel writers had a total accurate chronology of all the events, or details. So they put it together as best they could, adding what seemed to fit in order to make the story complete. The basic event did happen, for which they had evidence, but they filled in some details where necessary. Historians like Herodotus did the same. That doesn't falsify their accounts. It means we must distinguish the fact from the fiction if we want to probe into those details.

All the evidence shows that the miracle acts of Jesus are the basic facts, and that around these there emerged a story containing some fiction, to put the miracle events into a chronology and a consistent narrative with an interpretation to give sense to it.

You can argue that the evidence for this is insufficient to establish miracle claims, but this is what the evidence shows, not contradicted by evidence showing otherwise. Exactly how much evidence is required is not established. Much history is believed on far less evidence than we have for the Jesus miracle acts.

For example, in the Synoptics–especially the Gospel of Mark–it is the cleansing of the Temple that serves as the immediate cause of Jesus’ arrest and execution. In the Gospel of John there is no connection between these events, as the cleansing is two full years earlier.

The Mark account is correct on this, and John is incorrect to put the "cleansing of the Temple" so early. Almost certainly there was a riot preceding the arrest, explaining why Jesus was arrested. Mark makes it clear that Barabbas was arrested in this riot:

15:7 And among the rebels in prison, who had committed murder in the insurrection, there was a man called Barab'bas.

Almost certainly this "insurrection" refers to the "cleansing of the Temple" event, and this is the immediate cause for Jesus being arrested. But it's not necessarily true that Jesus was really the instigator of this disturbance. It's more likely that Barabbas instigated it, which is why he was arrested. His first name was "Jesus" (Mt. 27:16), and there was probably a confusion between these two "Jesus" figures, both of whom had followers with revolutionary anti-Roman sentiments.

In all the discrepancies with John, the synoptics are probably correct, while John did not pay attention to the chronology details. We can figure out what happened, generally, in these cases, and nothing about these discrepancies detracts from the basic miracle acts of Jesus which explain why Jesus was important and had followers, and why we have these 4 accounts.

The best explanation of the two "Jesus" figures is that Jesus Barabbas was notorious and popular for his anti-Roman demagoguery, while the attraction to Jesus Christ was his miracle acts.

In contrast, for the Gospel of John the immediate cause of Jesus’ execution is the raising of Lazarus (11:38-44), an event never discussed in the Synoptics.

John doesn't say explicitly that this was the cause. The Lazarus event happened outside Jerusalem at a point not covered in the Synoptics. There's no discrepancy other than John putting the "cleansing of the Temple" too early.

Thus, the story works differently in each of these versions because of basic changes in narrative.

Each author tells the story differently, but it's about a real event, or series of events, none of which can be explained unless the Jesus miracle acts really happened, because without those acts he did, there is no story. There was nothing for them to write about if Jesus did not do something noteworthy and unique for people to notice and pass on orally and in writing.

You can't make any sense out of this unless you explain what it was he did. Literature making claims like this does not just pop up for no reason. If it did, there would be other examples of it -- i.e., other reputed miracle-workers, others who were killed but came back to life -- but there aren't any others in any written evidence dated near the time of the alleged events.

[T]he Gospel writers … reshape and recombine both old and new episodes, teachings, and characters that circulate[d] about the central figure, Jesus. Storytelling was essentially an oral performance medium in the ancient world, even when those stories were eventually written down. Thus, any particular performance might highlight different elements in the light of the circumstances of the author and the audience … Different actors, different settings, different periods of history–all of them create a different climate. Even when a script gets written down, the performances and emphases can change or be reinterpreted…

In this sense, the authors were playing to an audience. They are ‘faithful’ in that they were trying to instill and reaffirm the faith of those audiences, . . .

No, they were adding something NEW, not reaffirming something previous. Mark says it from the start what they were doing, i.e., what they were communicating to the audience:

Mark 1:1 -- The beginning of the gospel of Jesus Christ, the Son of God.

They were telling the "good news" or euangelion or Gospel of Christ.

They are telling people the "good news" or something they did not know before. The Gospels all begin with some reference to events which had happened, and obviously their point is to relate these events which the readers otherwise wouldn't know about.

This doesn't mean the accounts will agree on all the details or chronology or even the interpretation of the events. But it's clear something happened, i.e., "good news" which needed to be reported, which would not be known unless those who knew it told it to others, as these writers were doing.

And also the Paul epistles use the term "gospel" (euangelion) over and over, meaning he understood it to be a happening, i.e., "good news" which was important to be told to people, plus also an explanation of its importance, and for him it is the resurrection event that was paramount. What was to be told in these writings was not a "reaffirming" of something old, but a reporting and explaining of something new that had happened. That they then tied this in to some earlier symbols or traditions does not change the fact that the whole point is to present the new truth or the new happening not otherwise known by the readers.

They connected the new event being reported to some old symbols, but this was a way of getting the readers to pay attention to the "good news" being reported. It helped win them over to fit Jesus in with their earlier traditions.

. . . albeit sometimes in new and different ways.

If all they were doing was reaffirming something old in a new way, why do these 4 accounts all appear at about the same time, from 70-100 AD, rather than spread out over 300 years or longer? Why was it only in this short space of time that "gospels" or a miracle-worker Messiah were needed? Why did no one earlier write anything similar to "instill and reaffirm the faith" of the audiences in various new or different ways? Why was such instilling and reaffirming needed only in this short time period?


What is the difference between "stories" and "histories"?

Even so, the stories are just that–stories–and not ‘histories’ in any modern sense.

But "histories" ARE stories, i.e., reports of what happened. And many of the Bible (or Gospel) "stories" are also "histories" -- it is simplistic to think these two categories are mutually exclusive. Virtually all "histories" are also "stories" claiming something happened.

The question is whether the reported events did or did not really happen -- i.e., whether the "stories" are true. In all accounts of reported events, including "historical" accounts, there is much fiction and much fact. You have to look at each "story" separately, not moronically lump them altogether and pretend that the whole collection is entirely "history" or entirely "stories" or fiction. There are plenty of "modern" historical scholars who use the Bible "stories" as sources for historical fact. To pretend any ancient document is all fiction or all history is pseudo-science and pseudo-scholarship.

As with all ancient writings, some of the stories are true and others fiction. Some of the stories of Herodotus and Josephus are true reports of historical events, and others are fiction. There are varying degrees of fiction vs. fact in the accounts.


(this Wall of Text to be continued)

 

[bilby]

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

Yes.

(No need for this post, or indeed thread, to be continued).

 

[Lumpenproletariat]

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)

Because of this rearrangement in material, therefore, which often includes re-ordering of events, we cannot assume that any individual Gospel gives an accurate chronological narrative.

They are partly accurate. Like most accounts we rely on are partly accurate but also partly inaccurate.

We can figure out much of the chronology. The Mark sequence is more accurate than John's, where they conflict. But obviously no one account is totally accurate, and some points of conflict cannot be resolved, as with much of the "historical" writings which contain discrepancies.

There's reason to believe the Jesus miracle stories generally, as actual historical events, just as we believe much of the historical record, from "historians" and history books and the History Channel, etc. which are all tainted with discrepancies and dubious elements but are still partly accurate.

There are simply too many discrepancies between the texts.

Not too many to be able to determine generally what happened. And what probably happened, as seen from the available evidence, is that this Jesus person of 30 AD did perform miracle acts, like described in the accounts. But there's much to doubt about the details, and also about the interpretations of the authors, and about the religious explanations, and of course about the notions of Bible inerrancy or infallibility.

Believing in Christ does not require submission to a catechism of religious doctrines or to a Divine Holy Book and other religious symbols, or resolution of all the "discrepancies" between texts or between different early Christ cults and evangelists and Church "Councils" and "Creeds" and other phenomena which emerged in response to the 30 AD event.

Likewise, redaction criticism can reveal legendary development and other forms of embellishment between earlier and later texts.

Yes, the "development" (or developments, plural) can be detected, but for every critic there is a different critique, and no one expert has proved that his critique has revealed accurately all the embellishments and disproved the other critiques.

No one's critique has proved that the Jesus miracle stories are embellishments. No one has shown other than that these reports are early and are part of the earliest version of the Jesus event of 30 AD. That they are embellishments is based only on the one doctrinal premise that there can be no miracle events ever. Except for this doctrine, there is no evidence of these being embellishments.

But there is good reason to believe that the Bethlehem story is an embellishment, which is why Ferguson and other debunkers keep returning to this element of the Mt and Lk accounts. This is the best element of embellishment they can find in the accounts. Their inability to come up with other examples indicates the relative absence of embellishment. And where there are embellishments, these are virtually all unrelated to the reported miracle acts.

For example, even Christian scholars, such as James McGrath, have acknowledged that Jesus’ burial is embellished in the later Gospels–Matthew, Luke, and John. As McGrath (The Burial of Jesus: History and Fiction, pg. 70) explains:

Our earliest account of Jesus’ burial, the Gospel of Mark, records a fundamental truth that later Christian authors tried desperately to ignore: Jesus’ disciples were not in a position to provide Jesus with an honorable burial. Mark tells us that a pious Jewish leader named Joseph of Arimathea made sure that Jewish law was observed, and, learning that Jesus had died, got the permission to take the body and bury it.

However, McGrath points out that the later Gospels make a number of changes to Mark’s version of the story, in order to exalt and embellish Jesus’ burial. Luke (23:53) adds the detail that the tomb had never been used before, making the burial more honorable, and Matthew (27:59-60) adds both the detail that the tomb was unused and that it was even Joseph’s own tomb. John (19:39-41) even further adds the detail that Jesus was anointed with 75 pounds of myrrh and aloes before his burial, even when this contradicts Mark 16:1, which implies that Jesus was not anointed before his burial. John also adds the detail that Jesus was buried in a garden. These kinds of embellishments suggest that the tradition of Jesus receiving a private burial in a tomb, which had never before been used, is probably a later embellishment (McGrath, for the record, supports the view that Jesus was buried in a common, criminal cemetery). Because of this, historians can thus doubt the accounts of Jesus’ burial in Matthew, Luke, and John.

Some details of the accounts can reasonably be doubted.

All accounts of any event can be doubted as to some minor details, written 50 years later than the events, as most of our accounts of events 1000 or 2000 years ago are doubted. Especially when there are multiple versions of the same event, i.e., the same real event which did actually happen, regardless of the particular details.

Regardless of the details, the preponderance of the evidence shows that he performed the miracle acts and was executed and buried but rose again. There is no evidence indicating otherwise, and in fact these miracle acts by Jesus are the only explanation why we have any Gospel accounts or any Christ believers or early "church" and early spread of the "gospel" or "good news" to the surrounding regions. Without the actual fact of him performing those miracle acts, nothing of these reported events makes any sense. It's normal for discrepancies to emerge in differing accounts of the same real historical event.

It should also be noted that, because the later Gospel authors derived so much material from Mark . . .

Most of their material is not from Mark, nor is it an embellishment on Mark.

There's no reason to believe any of John is derived from Mark. Rather, if there is anything in common, it was something known independently of Mark, meaning there were stories in circulation, or different versions of what happened, and both Mark and John derived something from these same sources. The much overlapping in the trial and execution narrative shows much common sources for both John and Mark, though neither knew of the other.

Also the odd quote of John, "a prophet has no honor in his native place" (4:44), which makes no sense in John's account, must be taken from something similar to where Mark got his "Rejection at Nazareth" story (Mk 6:1-6).

Just because Mark is the earliest of the accounts does not mean all the later accounts "derived" their information from Mark. There were many sources common to them all, used independently by them, with Mt and Lk quoting parts of Mark, but both mostly independent of this as a source.

. . . (which itself is based on earlier Greek pericopes and oral traditions), . . .

Most ancient history accounts are based on earlier "pericopes" and oral traditions. Perhaps Thucydides is an exception, but most of the writers relied on earlier reports or stories or gossip, including documents which themselves originated from oral reports or gossip. In general the sources for the Gospel writers were no different than that for most of the "historical" writings -- except that the very specific events of 30 AD originated from persons who were of no status, whereas the reports about notorious kings and military commanders originated mostly from persons of high status, which doesn't make them any more credible (maybe even less in some cases).

. . . it casts strong doubt on whether any of their narratives are based on “memories.”

They are based on the current reports, which probably derived originally from someone's memory (someone earlier), but most of the final writer's account (in 70 AD, e.g.) was not itself that of someone's memory, just like the sources for Herodotus and Josephus and others were mostly not someone's memory, but current oral and written accounts which originated from memories of earlier witnesses, or those close to the actual events. Just because the direct source used by the writer is not the memory of a current witness does not make it unreliable as a source for the events. Unless you want to toss most of our known ancient history into the scrap heap.

Instead, the borrowing and redaction of materials suggests that the Gospels were stitched together based on material that had been circulating for some decades, . . .

Same as most historical accounts we rely on for the events. Most of the "historical" writers (maybe not Thucydides) used mainly material that had been circulating for decades, which they "stitched together" into their final product.

. . . which was likewise redacted at multiple stages of composition.

It's the same for the "historical" writings reporting on events of 50+ years earlier, which is what most of our ancient history is. Over those decades there were many stages of composition and material "stitched together" to produce the final document that has survived down to us.

In a minority of cases the accounts probably went through fewer "stages of composition" or were not "stitched together" as much, but for reports on the events of many decades earlier there was much of this putting together of the pieces from earlier sources. And they are not made unreliable because of these "stages of composition" and being "stitched together" from the earlier pieces. Unless you want to throw most of our ancient history into the scrap heap.

Because of this, we have to treat the Gospels as received material, rather than first-hand accounts.

Virtually all our sources for the ancient history are "received material" rather than "first-hand accounts." There is no reason why the Gospel accounts should be an exception to this norm and have to conform to a different standard as a requirement for credibility.


(this Wall of Text to be continued)

 

[steve_bank]

I have attempted to discredit Christianity by hitting it at all angles, leaving it looking like a spike ball. Some of these points will not persuade all, but all will be persuaded by some.

http://www.kyroot.com

Some Christians are on a mission to convert all atheists, it is their purpose for living. Some atheists are on a mission to change Christians. IMO flip sides of the same coin, the same
obcession.

 

[steve_bank]

According to the Oxford Bible Commentary I read, the gospels are in the literary form of an action adventure in the language they were written in. The Acts would be the sequel.

From other sources in the Greek and Roman mythology JC was the story of a demigod. Human mother and a god for a father. JC has some but not all the powers of the god. JC dies in the act of saving the tribe and goes to be with the father.

 

[Keith&Co.]

According to the Oxford Bible Commentary I read, the gospels are in the literary form of an action adventure in the language they were written in. The Acts would be the sequel.

From other sources in the Greek and Roman mythology JC was the story of a demigod. Human mother and a god for a father. JC has some but not all the powers of the god. JC dies in the act of saving the tribe and goes to be with the father.

not terribly useful, here, this analyzing the content to understand the story's origin, relative to historical events.

Lumpy is currently protesting against the practice of classifying the story as fiction, first, THEN using that classification to determine the contents as fiction...
I don't know of anyone who does or did it that way, but he's getting quite prolix on the subject.

 

[steve_bank]

300+ posts and counting.

My approach.

Look at the region today. A hotbed of geo-politics, religious, sectarian, and ethnic violence. Not much different 2000 years ago. There was a Jewish prophesy of a redeemer who it was thought would restore them to power and glory. Sedition against Rome was in the air.

Numerous claims to the messiah, some bandits. JC was telling the Jews to get their act together or face destruction, which happened. Not a hard prediction in the times.

There are several personas in the gospels. Violent radical in the temple to the pacific Sermon On The Mount. My guess the gospels are based on general recollections of a group which may have had a singular leader. The supernatural was added as promotional material.

The term Jesus Christ has meaning from the Greek, unlikely his father was Mr Christ.

For a modern comparison, look at how quickly Mormonism grew its mythology from one person to a mass of beliers. There are numerous supernatural stories in Mormonism.

You can look how the Dracula story based on an historical bloody person grew from the original book to all the variations and embellishments.

It should not be a mystery how the gospel tales grew out of some real person and the tale grew along the way. Basic human nature.

 

[Lumpenproletariat]

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 a discussion of why Markan priority is the dominant view among mainstream New Testament scholars, see Michael Kok’s “Markan Priority or Posterity?.”

Mark was the first of the surviving documents (Gospel accounts), but this does not mean that the later accounts were dependent on Mark. There was some dependency, i.e., the quotes in Mt and Lk, but these quotes are a small fraction of those accounts.

[10] Some apologists have sought to excuse the fact that the Gospels do not mention contradictions and varying reports between their sources, by arguing that the Gospels were composed too close to the life of Jesus for divergent accounts to have emerged. Craig Keener (The Historical Jesus of the Gospels, pg. 128), for example, claims, “The Gospel writers do not identify specific sources … probably at least partly because they discuss events of a recent generation of which sources have not yet greatly diverged.”

There's some truth to this because the discrepancies between the accounts, especially our 4 Gospel accounts, were not apparent to the Gospel writers, who generally did not have the other Gospel accounts before them to compare, except for Mt and Lk who make use of Mark. Other than this, there's no reason to believe any of them were aware of the other 3 accounts. So the awareness of discrepancies was much less apparent at that time than 50-100 years later when all 4 accounts were generally known within the communities of Christ-believers.

Knowledge of the other accounts would have made the discrepancies more obvious, and then these would have decreased in number, or at least more effort made to reconcile them.

This argument is poorly supported, however, by trends in historical biographical literature written only a generation or two after the subject’s death.

As the Oxford Annotated Bible (pg. 1744) explains about the dating of the NT Gospels, “Scholars generally agree that the Gospels were written forty to sixty years after the death of Jesus.” There is an abundance of historical biographical literature written within this same timespan, however, that nevertheless spends considerably more space citing contradictions and varying reports between sources.

But these are not a good comparison to the Gospel accounts, which are not "historical biographical" literature. The mainline "historical" and "biographical" writers are vastly more voluminous and extensive and so suited to including such critical subject matter. And these writers knew of conflicting versions of the same event, and it was part of their function as historians to address the conflicting theories of what happened. But the Gospel writers had less information about conflicting versions of the same event, and even when they knew of such conflicting accounts, it was not their function to do criticism of these or to resolve the discrepancies.

You cannot measure the Gospel writings according to standards of the specialized "historical" writings and "biographical" literature which covered much longer periods of history and were so much more extensive, and also which treated subject matter more widely publicized, like the activities of the emperors and kings and generals and the military campaigns. Everyone knew of these events, and all the "historians" wrote of them, so there was much published on these events and so much available for comparison, and for disputing what happened.

By contrast, the Gospel writers did not have many different sources for the Jesus events. And in cases where they had conflicting reports, they had no reason to resolve these, but only a need to put together their own version, taking from what they had and putting it together as best as they could. As non-"historians" they had no need to compare their sources and critique them analytically.

Suetonius’ Twelve Caesars, for example, was written c. 121 CE, which placed it about fifty years after the Roman civil war of 69 CE. During that war, three successive emperors died violently, and Suetonius cites contradictions and divergent accounts about all of their lives.

But the Gospel writers had no contradictory reports to cite, with so much less documentation available to them. And where they knew of some discrepancies, there was no purpose served in reporting or discussing them. An elitist specialist "historian" had a reason to cite different accounts and sources, but most ancient writers did not have any reason to do this.

You can't compare such powerful political celebrities as the Roman emperors to a figure like Jesus who was unknown in his lifetime outside a very limited geographical region, and who was written about by persons of no status or recognition as historians. Whoever wrote anything about Jesus in the mid-1st-century had no recognition or standing that anyone would discuss their writings and criticize them for good or bad reporting practices, or for bad investigating procedures.

Suetonius was in an entirely different class of writers than those who wrote anything about Jesus in the 1st century. Any comparison of these to such an officially-recognized "historian" cannot be taken seriously. Those writing about Jesus had no reason to discuss different sources, but only to report their one version of what happened. They were not writing "history" but were reporting the "good news," which was too important and too urgent for them to get hung up on superfluous debate and speculation about differing versions of the details of the story.

For the the emperor Galba, Suetonius cites contradictions about the manner of his assassination (Gal. 20.1).

By analogy then, we should expect the Gospel writers to discuss discrepancies regarding the trial or death or resurrection of Jesus? Very likely they did not know of these discrepancies, generally. But if we assume they had some awareness of it, and in their accounts they chose what they thought was the most likely sequence of events, even then it was totally alien to them to include a discussion of the different versions of it.

Perhaps they knew of doubts as to who first discovered the empty tomb, or what exactly was said at the trial, or details about the scene at the cross, about the other two who were crucified, about exactly what was said by the soldiers or bystanders, etc. Trying to clarify all the doubtful points was not part of the Gospel-writers' function, even if they knew of those doubtful points. Their readers needed to know the basic story, which was important to be presented to them even in an account not conforming to the rigid requirements for "historical" scholarship.

For Otho (the subsequent emperor), Suetonius cites contradictions about the manner in which he overthrew Galba (Oth. 6.2). For the next emperor, Vitellius, Suetonius cites contradictions about his ancestry (Vit. 1.1). The historical biographer Plutarch also wrote about the civil war of 69 CE, and his biographies of the emperors Galba and Otho were probably published, at the latest, during the reign of the emperor Nerva (96-98 CE), only about thirty years after their deaths.

But Plutarch's account did not have the urgency to it which the Gospels had. The latter were focused on one specific event, the "good news" of Christ, which was an overall important event involving many details which were not individually important. These details surrounding the vital message to be told did not require the precision a "historian" seeks, who is not promoting an urgent message but is reporting a wide range of facts spread out over a few decades, or even centuries, with no special focus on one particular point or one particular event within the longer period.

To make comparisons to the Gospel accounts, you must find similar accounts reporting on a similar kind of event, narrowly focused to a short time span, and not focused on famous celebrities like emperors and military commanders extending conquest over millions of subject peoples.

And yet, Plutarch cites contradictions about the events of Galba’s assassination (Gal. 14.4), and likewise cites contradictions about Otho’s civil war with Vitellius (Oth. 9.2-3). Suetonius also wrote about the Flavian dynasty (69-96 CE), fifty to twenty-five years after the emperors who reigned. And yet, Suetonius cites contradictions about the occupation of the emperor Vespasian’s father (Vesp. 1.2), and different interpretations of the meaning behind the emperor Titus’ last words (Tit. 10.2), as well as various rumors about the emperor Domitian’s youth (Dom. 1.1).

Nothing is proved with these false comparisons to "historians" like Suetonius and to powerful political figures like the emperors.

Clearing up discrepancies like these would serve no purpose for the Gospel writers. They all present one special event, which they thought urgently needed to be known, regardless of the minor conflicting details surrounding it. They covered the details as necessary in order to get the story out, but precisely ironing out the details had no importance, and wasting space discussing sources and the pro's and con's of this or that version would have detracted from their purpose, causing confusion and missing the larger picture of the unusual historical event which had taken place.

The interest of Plutarch and Suetonius was in FACTS (plural), the record of all the events, including fine points about discrepancies and sources, while that of the Gospel writers was one particular fact or event which had to be presented in whatever manner would best communicate it.


The Gospels are not about general "history" or historical "facts"
but about one special historical event.

Communicating that one fact/event is all that mattered, meaning no extra attention to detail was appropriate which would interfere with communicating that one major fact/event.

Though some details were necessary in order to communicate the one main fact/event, getting those details ironed out exactly was unimportant. There was no need for precise accuracy, and critical debates about sources and discrepancies would get the account bogged down in excess detail which would obstruct the needed communication.

You have to take into account the very different function played by "historians"/"biographers" like Plutarch, presenting all the facts of the period, or of the character whose entire life is being described, as opposed to the Gospel writers who were focused on one very specific event which stood out as important and apart from all the other millions of facts which were of no interest.

The Gospel writes used factual details when needed for putting the important event into a setting or framework, to communicate it, but there was no point in doing research to establish all those details precisely. Plus this was virtually impossible anyway due to the lack of information, so that they had to rely on conjecture in order to narrate the event in a complete account.

It should be noted that all of these contradictory and varying reports are recorded about Roman emperors, for whom there would have been considerably more documentation and knowledge about their lives.

Of course, while the opposite is the case for the Jesus events -- which shows why the above comparisons are pointless and explains why the Gospel writers could not address all the possible conflicting details even if they had wanted to. There was far more documentation of the powerful political celebrities than there was of Jesus, at that time, which is precisely why there were far more conflicts and disputed reports about them and far more debate and critical discussion of them, and more incentive to disagree with various claims and resolve some of them.

Where there's much less documentation, there's much less controversy and much less to be disputed -- while also there is much more need to speculate on the details and fill these in with guesswork if a writer wants to present a complete account.

So we should expect much less dispute and critical analysis in the Gospels and far more speculation and guessing on the details, if the basic claims about his miracle acts are true. And thus it's to be expected that these basic reported facts would be accompanied by a higher degree of guessing and confusion on the incidental details. So this lesser amount of documentation and fewer conflicting reports is further evidence supporting the basic reported facts, the miracle acts of Jesus, despite the greater doubt about the minor details, which are of no importance in these writings, though such details are important in the "historical" and "biographical" writings.

In the case of Jesus, he was an obscure Galilean peasant, whose life was first related by oral tradition, spanning various regions, and often in Greek, a different language than what Jesus spoke.

And though this likely resulted in confusion on many details, it also means there was no interest in debating those details, because it was only the basic facts which mattered, so that in the 30s and 40s and 50s no one cared about investigating any discrepancies or comparing the details of one version to those of another.

So, where the 4 accounts agree on the main points we can assume a high degree of accuracy, because there had to be something unusual in the basic facts, which was uniformly recognized and common to all the reports, while for the details and ambiguous points there's likely an element of error greater than in the historical writings reporting on the famous celebrities of the time.

Keener’s notion that divergent accounts about Jesus would not substantially emerge under such circumstances, when divergence emerged among accounts about Roman emperors, for whom it would have been considerably easier to ascertain the facts of their lives, is thus poorly supported.

No, Keener's point is correct that there were no significant discrepancies or conflicting accounts being disputed and needing to be resolved.

Whatever conflicts or discrepancies there were in the accounts required no correction or discussion by writers. No one would waste time and effort trying to determine all the precise details of the Jesus events, or debate such details, as such a debate or critical approach would get the writers hopelessly bogged down in minute details which have no importance. So such arguments did not exist or were avoided, and there were no efforts to clear up the details and give a totally accurate account of the Jesus events by debating all the sources or different versions of the story.

The 1st-century believers thought the world would end soon and Jesus would return, so no point would be served in having a debate about sources and differing versions, leading to endless scholarly debates but no presentation of the basic "good news" message which needed to get out to millions of readers and hearers.

Over the centuries it has become more appropriate for these scholarly debates to develop, but in the 1st century it would have made no sense, and the Gospel writers had no legitimate reason to worry about any discrepancies -- they each presented a version of the story they thought to be about correct, but they wasted no time or effort pursuing alternate versions, or comparing different versions of the story.

Different versions of the story existed (discrepancies in details), but none which were being promoted against other versions, like a debate, to determine which version was correct, because all that mattered was the general picture, or the main "good news" message, and it was a time when no one cared, or should care, about discrepancies or critical determination of the details. So in this sense there were no debates and no comparison of differing versions or even awareness of such differences. And it's silly to expect them to have engaged in such superfluous debate and comparison and analysis and "historical" criticism.

To his credit, Keener (pg. 128) also offers a better explanation for why the Gospels do not cite contradictions and varying reports between their sources: “The more popular audience anticipated may be a more important factor; popular works of various genres were less likely to cite sources, even when they clearly depend on them.”

But being aimed at a more popular audience does not mean more fictional or less credible. What it means is communicating an important message that ANYONE could understand and which does not require an elitist education.

In this regard, however, when the Gospels are compared to the genre of Greco-Roman biography, they more closely resemble the style of popular-novelistic biographies, rather than historical biographies.

But both comparisons are false, as the Gospels do not resemble either the "historical" or the "popular-novelistic" biographies. Again, Ferguson tries artificially to categorize the Gospels and thus dismiss them based on the artificial category he places them into, as if they presume to be "historical biographies" and fall short of the strict standards these must follow. But that's not what the Gospels are, and you cannot judge them based on this artificial categorization of them.

Once again, you can't compare the Gospels to any literature type unless you identify AT LEAST ONE example of such literature in that category. And Ferguson does not do this -- all he can identify are the Alexander and Aesop romances and the Certamen of Homer and Hesiod, which are all written several centuries later than the historical period they are about.

The Gospels cannot be likened to any writing which dates 400 or 500 years after the historical time of the event it reports (i.e., fictional or factual event). There is no excuse why Ferguson cannot supply us with an example of such a writing. For him to continually fall back on these writings of a different type indicates that he cannot find any example other than one which would contradict his theory. I.e., the only examples he can give of "fictional" literature having stories put into past history are examples which cannot appear until several centuries after the historical time of the stories. And anything he offers which is closer to the time, i.e., less than 100 years from the reported event, would be in a NON-fiction category.

No? Then let's have an example of literature, resembling the Gospels, but not written 400 years after the events (stories) it reports, but rather, only 100 YEARS or less from the historical time of the stories. Why can't there be such an example? What's the excuse for continuing to give only examples of writings dated several centuries later?


(this Wall of Text to be continued)

 

[steve_bank]

In the times there was no journalism, stating the obvious.

Historians filled in the blanks as a matter of course. Herodotus was called Herodotus the Liar. Josephus cited by Christians would be in the same vein.

The gospels would appear to be in the form of history circa 2000 years ago, or historical drama as we would say...loosely based on facts but fictionalized. That is what makes most sense to me.

Buddhism has the same problem There are o contemporaneous independent accounts of a noble who want wandering about.

 

[Keith&Co.]

Which is why Lumpy has invented this odd window of time in which oral traditions are transmitted to the eventual transcribers without any sort of embellishment. Accounts that are this magical dustance from hisorical events are not to be confused with the obviously-padded-over-centuries accounts of other divine beings, nir can they just be made-up-shit, because at the heart of every myth is trewth, and there wasn't padding time for the Jesus accounts.

Of course, this is still using the gospels to verify the gospels, with no independent corroboration of their content, or the magic window of accuracy, but that doesn't bother Lumpy

Because miracle.