The authors of the Gospels didn’t know any of those dudes (and it’s unlikely many, if any, were alive after the diaspora). The audience for the Gospels were mostly gentiles and Hellenized Jews living outside Palestine 40-70 years after the crucifixion. They no access to witnesses or contrary evidence and so the argument that “witnesses were still alive” is a specious one, albeit a oft proffered one. There is no reason to believe that anyone hearing these stories would have either the means or the inclination to try to verify events which were alleged to have occurred in a now destroyed city a half century or more earlier. A quick look at Snopes or burgeoning myths like “Elvis is alive” theories should put to rest any serious argument that 40 years is not sufficient time for a myth to be created- especially in a time and place where people were highly credulous, superstitious and without any logistical tools to investigate anything empirically.
None of the above is, in itself, proof that a Historical Jesus did not exist (and for the record, I still believe that he probably did), but the fact that the Gospels can be placed within the envelope of plausibility for the lifetime of hypothetical surviving witnesses does not approach anything like a convincing proof that he did exist.
Josephus did not write before the Gospels (at least not Matthew and Mark) which is what kaon actually asserted and he is correct, the earliest narrative writing of a historical Jesus is the Gospel of Mark.
The James passage in Josephus is also heavily disputed as to its authenticity. I can elaborate if you wish, but I’m not trying to personally assert that the passage is interpolated (although the arguments for that are not easily dismissable), only that it’s by no means universally accepted as genuine. It also doesn’t say why this James was executed or that he was the leader of a church.
The silence of Paul on the Historical Jesus is more problematic than you’re giving it credit for. As I mentioned before, he says virtually nothing about the living Jesus, offeres no biographical information, and (in my opinion) most problematically only quotes Jesus once, in a Eucharistic formulation which is ritualistic in nature and highly questionable as to whether Paul was referring to a historical or spiritual event. I say this is most problematic because there are many opportunities where Paul could have easily bolstered his arguments with direct quotes from Jesus and he doesn’t do it. It’s exceedingly odd that Paul seems to have never availed himself of Jesus’ own teachings or words at any point for anything, even when it would have supported a point he was trying to get across to his audience.
Now I will not be so reductionist to say that Paul did not know anything about Jesus other than what he put in his own letters but his failure, time after time, to pull out the ultimate cite when it would have served him perfectly is not something which strengthens an argument that Paul perceived Jesus as a real, historical person.
Question: If we were to assume, for the sake of argument, that Jesus was indeed married during the time of his ministry, would it pretty much have to be Mary Magdalene to whom he was married? My memory is a bit lacking, but was there another “Mary” at the crucifiction or at the burial/resurrection site?
“Mark” was likely written by John Mark, a disciple of Peter- and Peter certainly knew Jesus. It is also possible that Mark was the “certain young man” in Mark 14:51, and if so, he met Jesus.
“John” was very likely dictated by John- and then edited by John’s disciples. John was one of the 12 Disciples, so he certainly met Jesus.
“Luke” is problematic, and “Matthew” is a complete unknown.
OTOH, Paul certainly met both Peter and James.
These are all based upon the current consensus in “The Oxford Companion to the Bible”.
No real scholar has any doubt as to that quote from Josephus. There is another- which describes Jesus in quite glowing terms- which is highly doubtful. The valid quote from Josephus mentions that James was ordered stoned (which is 'executed") by Ananus (in 61CE) for heresey. James was well known to be one of the leaders of early Christianity.
The most interesting (to me) anomaly that the show pointed out was in my point 2 which I was perhaps too brief about…
Assuming we agree that Paul wrote about Jesus BEFORE the gospel writers, then… if… IF Jesus was a real human as described in the gospels, then it is strange that Paul, didn’t have more details on Jesus’s life than the gospel writers…
How could it be that Jesus lived, then died, then people (Paul’s time) forgot about him, then people remembered him (gospel writers and after)?
The more likely timeline is roughly:
Jesus didn’t exist, Paul wrote about his heavenly Jesus, gospel writers wrote abt the human Jesus as fiction.
And about who ripped off who, apparently this debate even has its own name, Synoptic Problem.
Paul wasn’t writing a biography. Christian literature is full of books that are about the faith and not the man. Luke (who was a companion of Paul’s) wrote the biography, leaving Paul free to concentrate of his letter writing. We can reasonably conclude that Paul knew whatever Luke knew.
Inasmuch as many undertook to compile an account of the things that have been fulfilled among us, just as those who had been from the beginning eyewitnesses and servants of the word handed down to us, it occurred to me too, after carefully following everything from the top, to write for you point-by-point, most excellent Theophilus, so that you would realize the correctness of the matters you have been instructed about. — Luke 1:1-4
Ripped off?
You make it sound like some dude named Matthew cribbed work from some dude named Mark, and then wrote “Gospel according to Matthew” at the top of the page, representing it as his original work. You’ve failed to take into account both the fact that authorship assignments are largely arbitrary, and that 21st century American modes and methods did not apply in 1st century Palestine. What you would call plagiarism was a common practice among ancient writers. People did not own or copyright so-called original work. (“No man has ever had an original thought.” — EA Poe) Writing was styled on oral traditions, which meant the verbatim handing down of information heard from some other source. In fact, the more original something was, the more suspect it was unless it was from an eye witness.
The phrase Synoptic Problem does not even mean that there is some problem with the gospels themselves, but rather a problem with figuring out their literary interdependencies. Your use of the qualifier “apparently” indicates to me that you just recently fell off the truck in this regard, and so I give you some leeway. But in the future, you should be more careful about how you characterize this issue lest you be taken to task for deliberately creating red herrings.
Guilty as charged. Sorry, I meant it half-jokingly.
(yes, I’m aware that the “problem” refers to attempts at establishing lineage rather than it being a problem with the bible.)
ALL of the Gospels are anonymous. The only thing we can tell for certain is that they weren’t written by witnesses or anybody who knew any witnesses (nor do any of them make any claim to have known any witnesses). The traditional authors which are ascribed to them arose from 2nd century folklore. There is virtually no support anymore among scholars that any of those traditions have any authenticity. GJohn, in particular, is regarded as the least historical of the Canonical Gospels. I’ve gone into considerable detail on this before. There is absolutely no evidentiary support FOR those authorship traditions and plenty against it. They have long been rejected in mainstream scholarship and are currently only supported by religious apologists, not by any sort of genuine methodology or evidence.
He claims to have met people by those names but it is far from clear that he regarded them as having had any literal relationship with a real, historical person.
[quoteThese are all based upon the current consensus in “The Oxford Companion to the Bible”.[/quote]
My Oxford Annotated merely describes “ancient Christian tradition” and acknowledges that the books are anonymous. If your OCB asserts those traditions as known historical fact, then it’s completely out of step with where the scholarship really is.
Both passages are disputed. The James passage actually contradicts other things Josephus said about Annaeus and the cause of the Jewish-Roman War. It does not say that that James was the leader of a church. More on this later. I have to go out for a while.
Lib, that intro from Luke does not represent a claim that the author spoke to witnesses, only that he researched what had been previously “handed down to us” in prior Christian literature.
How can we tell that “only thing we can tell for certain is that they weren’t written by witnesses or anybody who knew any witnesses” if we don’t know who wrote them?
The Oxford Companion to the Bible (a much more detailed work than the Annotated") gives the following as their “consensus” as to the Authorship of John (here I paraphrase and cut down the verbiage, they go into three very long paragraphs why each step is the most likely thing):
1.John the Apostle “transmitted orally to his folowers an account ofthe deeds and sayings of Jesus…”
John and his desciples moved to Ephesus… where “John’s disciples commited to writing” those words and memories. John is usually agreed to have lived until almost 100, which goes along with that Gospel dating from about CE100.
After the death of John his Church “published a final edited version of the Gospel”. Early versions of John have been found which date to 135-150 CE, so a date of 100CE or so is acceptable.
There is no evidence given in the Oxford Companion agaisnt Makr being the Author of Mark- even though they agree it comes from Papias in about 130 CE- Papias having claimed he “was told this”. Since it is quite possible that Papias could have met a man who met Mark, there is no reason to disbelieve his ascription.
As I admit- Luke is problematic and Matthew is a complete unknown.
The Oxford Companion is a consensus writing of some 250 of the top scholars in the field. Any single author can only be “out of step” with this general consenus of the experts and scholrs in the field.
I never said that the Josephus quote said that James was the leader of a church. It explains why he was executed (and the story meshes 100% with the New testament and other histroical sources) and if one knows that James was one of the Leaders, the motives of Annaeus become obvious.
Finally- Cecil says so. Around here, that’s usually good enough.
The almost universal consensus of current Biblical scholarship is that all four authorship traditions are spurious. If The Oxford book says otherwise, it’s wrong. I obviously don’t have it at hand but I suspect they are citing Christian tradition and the “consenus” of theologians rather than scholars.
But you do understand that that doesn’t really mean very much. Today’s consensus is tomorrow’s contention. We could have been discussing geology a few years back, and someone could have cited the almost universal consensus that continental drift is a ridiculous idea. The Biblical scholars base their views on premises and interpretations that are open to challenge. A hundred against one doesn’t make the one wrong. It doesn’t even tip the scale. The arguments are the arguments.
Well, I have my source- possibly the most respected Press backed by 250 dudes with Professorships and PhDs. I also have Cecil. You have…well, it seems- you.
That’s Cecil, 250 scholars and me vs …DtC. The Consenus is us.
I know this is getting into another debate entirely, but most of the Church as I understand it believes that two of the gospels were written by men who were on the three-year wandering mission trip. They would have a pretty good idea of what he had to deal with in his personal life.
As I said, modern historians and objective Bible scholars (scholars who do not have an a priori religious belief in the authorship traditions) have long ago dismissed those traditions as spurious. Click on my link in post #68 for a longer explanation as to why.
I don’t have the energy to get into a nasty religious fight, but anyone who states as a “fact” that Mark wrote down things “haphazardly” as if that could be proven has a strike against him going in.
Sorry, I meant it half-jokingly.