Part A of My New 3-Part Essay on Jesus Has Been Published on The Secular Web!

[1Heidegger1!]

Title: Gospels, Classics, and the Erasure of the Community: A Critical Review Testing the Hypothesis of Robyn Faith Walsh’s The Origins of Early Christian Literature, Part A

(2024)

Part A: Jesus in the Light of Greco-Roman Philosophy and Highly Sophisticated Engagement with the Old Testament

Abstract:

In Part A of a three-part critical review of Robyn Faith Walsh's The Origins of Early Christian Literature: Contextualizing the New Testament within Greco-Roman Literary Culture, John MacDonald provides a literary application and defense of Walsh’s hypothesis that the Gospels are not, as is usually thought, the product of literate spokespersons conveying the oral tradition of their community, but rather are birthed out of networks of elite Greco-Roman-Jewish writers in dialogue with one another, not downtrodden illiterate peasants. MacDonald aims to show that Walsh's approach makes good sense of the evidence, such as pervasive intertextual haggadic midrash (Jewish) and mimesis (Greek) going on in writing the Gospels, which seems less likely on the “oral tradition of the community” hypothesis. Walsh's critique of the community oral tradition model is important because that model is what bridges the gap from the opaque period of Jesus’ life and death in the 30s through Paul (who is silent on the details of Jesus’ life) to the destruction of the Temple in the 70s, when Mark's gospel appears. A few bare details aside, without this chain of sources, reconstruction of the events of Jesus' life is essentially impossible.

Article: https://infidels.org/library/modern/testing-robyn-faith-walsh-hypothesis-1/

 

[SIB]

For me, jesus is an ok focal point so long as its not taken literal. As soon as we state "Jesus is the only way!" we have deviated from his message. But that's just me, a internet hack.

 

[bilby]

As soon as we state "Jesus is the only way!" we have deviated from his message.

Which, if he is not the only way, it is perfectly acceptable and reasonable to deviate from...

 

[Swammerdami]

I don't know if this contradicts Robyn Walsh's hypothesis, but there were surely Aramaic-language Christian writings -- most notably the "Q source" -- that preceded the destruction of Jerusalem. Parts of the Gospels are seen to have been translated from Aramaic.

Why then do the Gospels we know about all derive from Greek writings after 70 AD? It's due to the cost of, and need for, Gospel manuscripts.

Papyrus was expensive, as were the services of professional scribes. The early Christian community was centered in the single city of Jerusalem and simply didn't need more than a very few Gospel copies that could be passed around. It was the destruction of Jerusalem that led to a dispersal of Christians and hence an increased need for such copies. And the rapid increase in Greek-speaking Christians made the cost of manuscript preparation a non-issue.

 

[Learner]

For me, jesus is an ok focal point so long as its not taken literal. As soon as we state "Jesus is the only way!" we have deviated from his message. But that's just me, a internet hack.

Jesus is the only way to what? Curiously, what do you, bilby & co. in your view think this 'only way..' is referring to in context?

 

[1Heidegger1!]

I talk about the Q source in part two of my book review.

 

[Jarhyn]

For me, jesus is an ok focal point so long as its not taken literal. As soon as we state "Jesus is the only way!" we have deviated from his message. But that's just me, a internet hack.

Jesus is the only way to what? Curiously, what do you, bilby & co. in your view think this 'only way..' is referring to in context?

I think largely, Jesus was, among his contemporaries, the only person who described even badly a number of concepts I myself am working on understanding.

There are a number of basic discussions that may be had around goal justification and goal exclusion from first principles that forms the foundation of ethics. In addition, there is a second discussion about the mutability of the concept of self and collectivity. Also, there is a discussion to be had a long the lines of gnosticism and simulation theory that is on the barest edges of the other two conversations.

The goal is generally perceived as a logically and rationally founded set of answers to questions in those (inexhaustive) domains, and "the way" is the path from shared first principles to said goal(s; inexhaustive).

You won't get there by simply presenting what you view is "the solution", because unless you show a way to CHECK that solution (not in evidence), relying on that solution can lead to stepping on some plank of illogical and nonsensical and otherwise indefensible "solution" and falling to our dooms in the resulting failure of ethics.

As such, unless you can present the logical foundations of your beliefs free of the religious bullshit and dogma, all you have is yet another weak and false belief, not the truth.

 

[bilby]

For me, jesus is an ok focal point so long as its not taken literal. As soon as we state "Jesus is the only way!" we have deviated from his message. But that's just me, a internet hack.

Jesus is the only way to what? Curiously, what do you, bilby & co. in your view think this 'only way..' is referring to in context?

I always assumed that it means "the only way to God's side", ie "the only way to heaven".

Which, as gods are nonexistent, and an afterlife physically impossible, is fundamentally meaningless.

The offer of a reward for obedience, that you cannot collect until you are dead, is the ultimate scam. You'd do better to follow a Nigerian 419 scammer - at least they promise non-existent rewards before you die.

 

[Jarhyn]

Which, as gods are nonexistent, and an afterlife physically impossible,

Well, to me this is like saying "extraction and re-implementation of an emulated substrate in a system of physical laws into a more 'fundamental' system of physical laws is impossible, and simulation owners/simulations are non-existent".

It's not actually true.

Gods of this world are not demonstrated and an afterlife is not possible IFF "the physics we know" are not emulated among physics we don't.

These are very different propositions.

Plenty of humans do exactly what the hypothetical god-of-this-world is said by religion to have done, so it strikes me as kind of ridiculous to claim physical impossibility in general.

I prefer to instead point out that letting the world go to shit hoping for a better one later is a surefire way to never get invited to another world which you will likely adopt the same pattern for.

 

[bilby]

These are very different propositions.

No, they aren't. You just agreed with me, but took the scientific approach of being cautious to the point of pedantry about declaring things "non-existent" or "impossible".

In casual conversation, outside the nitpicking worlds of science and philosophy, we say something is "non-existent" when billions of people have spent millennia looking for a shred of evidence for a thing, and have completely failed in that effort; And we say something is "impossible" when it would require that the best tested and most accurate theories are wildly and obviously wrong*.










*And bear in mind that when I say "afterlife", I am talking about that concept in the context of religion, not whatever post-human technological singularity sci-fi is currently enthusing you to the point of failing to notice how little anyone else cares.

 

[T.G.G. Moogly]

As such, unless you can present the logical foundations of your beliefs free of the religious bullshit and dogma, all you have is yet another weak and false belief, not the truth.

Q is a rather logical and reasonable supposition that fits the orthodox Jesus story, which is probably why it's there at all. In other words, first comes belief in and devotion to the orthodox claims, then comes whatever evidence is necessary to support the belief. Orthodox Shakespeare belief is similar. Orthodox Shakespeare believers must propose an "Ur Hamlet" to have existed to fit their claims about who wrote the Shakespeare canon. There is no evidence to support the supposition of an Ur Hamlet document but it must be claimed and it must have been there to make sense about the claim that a man from Stratford is the author, "William Shakespeare," and the author of Hamlet in particular.

 

[Janice Rael]

As such, unless you can present the logical foundations of your beliefs free of the religious bullshit and dogma, all you have is yet another weak and false belief, not the truth.

But it's faith, not logic. The happy people of faith who I know are not searching for any sort of thing; they are not even searching.

There was a very recent time in which atheism was a capital-A word and a "carefully considered, conscious choice" (with a wallet card) and "de facto atheists" were not part of this esteemed group. Secular Humanism's gates were even heavier, its goals loftier and pricier (also a wallet card). Freethought is much the same.

The happy people of lacking theism are also not searching for any sort of thing, nor is logic or "reason" (any definition) a basis for their lack of faith.

"It's not the destination, it's the journey." - some happy person

Jesus said to spend time sharing meals and chatting, paying your taxes and loving your parents, and to ignore the laws and public piety. Anything else isn't in Red Letters.


A belief in the unknowable can't be false, can it? Why would logic be needed to have faith? It's not! Love ya <3