Biblical Criticism & History Forum - earlywritings.com

In Carrier's book, "On the Historicity of Jesus", Carrier proposes that the gospel of Mark was based off the Homeric epics. He cites Dennis Macdonald extensively. Now Macdonald came out with a lot of this work quite a few years ago and it hasn't really caught on. Has his work been debunked? Is it just parallel-mania? What does the consensus of scholars think on his work and mimesis in particular? Thanks

Bart Ehrman gives his (brief) opinion here: http://ehrmanblog.org/question-about-ey ... e-gospels/

• Question: Bart, What is your opinion of Dennis MacDonald’s book, “The Homeric Epics and the Gospel of Mark?”
  
  Answer: I think Dennis is really smart and we’ve been friends for years. I don’t agree with him, though, about the significant role played by Homer for the early Christian writings, especially Mark.

You can also see McDonald's responses to critics on his webpage here: http://iac.cgu.edu/drm/index.html (Thanks to Vridar blog for the link)

winningedge101 wrote:Has his work been debunked?

Its perfectly plausible the authors were well read, and influenced by such.

Anything beyond that does not need to be debunked because it is unsubstantiated.

Is it just parallel-mania?

Yes and desperate

What does the consensus of scholars think on his work and mimesis in particular?

controversial theories while ignoring the OT intertextuality

winningedge101 wrote:In Carrier's book, "On the Historicity of Jesus", Carrier proposes that the gospel of Mark was based off the Homeric epics. He cites Dennis Macdonald extensively. Now Macdonald came out with a lot of this work quite a few years ago and it hasn't really caught on. Has his work been debunked? Is it just parallel-mania? What does the consensus of scholars think on his work and mimesis in particular? Thanks

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outhouse wrote:

winningedge101 wrote:Has his work been debunked?

Its perfectly plausible the authors were well read, and influenced by such.

Anything beyond that does not need to be debunked because it is unsubstantiated.

Is it just parallel-mania?

Yes and desperate

What does the consensus of scholars think on his work and mimesis in particular?

controversial theories while ignoring the OT intertextuality

So they might have been influenced by the Homeric epics but it's still parallel-mania? I guess my main question is if this theory is really as awesome and irrefutable as Carrier makes it sound why has it(as far as I'm aware) not caught on in academia?

winningedge101 wrote: So they might have been influenced by the Homeric epics but it's still parallel-mania?

No what Macdonald is proposing is parallel-mania.

I guess my main question is if this theory is really as awesome and irrefutable as Carrier makes it sound why has it(as far as I'm aware) not caught on in academia?

Its not awesome or irrefutable and Carrier ignores credible academia, he is just pandering to small group to sell books and nothing else.

I was a fan of his in his early years. Now that he is an "author" it seems he plagiarizes poor work just to make some coin.

The academia you speak of consists of faculty on the whole who have a strong personal interest in Christianity. Of course they are not going to run with something as radical as MacDonald's thesis. MacDonald himself has said as much. One might as well ask why MacDonald and a few others persists with this and related theses knowing they are not going to "catch on" in their time.

The conservative and pro-Christian bias of the academy generally is very well attested by certain of its members.

I never knew a hypothesis should be assessed on the basis of whether a majority of scholars with a strong interest in Christianity embraces it. That's a rather lazy and strange way to assess the soundness of a hypothesis.

Indeed, given what classicists have shown us about the literary practices and values of the day it would be very strange if gospels about Jesus that were composed in Greek by authors trained for years to read and write Greek did not contain at least some mimetic allusions to the classics.

neilgodfrey wrote:The academia you speak of consists of faculty on the whole who have a strong personal interest in Christianity. Of course they are not going to run with something as radical as MacDonald's thesis. MacDonald himself has said as much. One might as well ask why MacDonald and a few others persists with this and related theses knowing they are not going to "catch on" in their time.

I never knew a hypothesis should be assessed on the basis of whether a majority of scholars with a strong interest in Christianity embraces it. That's a rather lazy and strange way to assess the soundness of a hypothesis.

I'm an amateur asking for the consensus opinion. Am I supposed to apologize? Also why resort to the conspiracy that academia would never hop on to this theory because it's radical? Most critical scholars don't think Moses and the patriarchs probably existed so why couldn't they just hop on this as well? I think mimesis is a lot less radical than getting rid of the whole Torah as a historically reliable source.

neilgodfrey wrote:The academia you speak of consists of faculty on the whole who have a strong personal interest in Christianity. .

That has nothing to do with MacDonald actually substantiating his claims. Which for the record he has not done.

He actually blatantly ignores the OT intertextuality, by his wayward conclusions.


While there is bias, and I cannot stand apologetic scholars, MacDonald has found no real support in scholars who ignore the apologist you speak of.

Exploiting all scholars credible conclusions because of the known bias of a few, to me would be a mistake brother Neil

neilgodfrey wrote:whether a majority of scholars with a strong interest in Christianity embraces it


.

This does not reflect accurately the current state of academia.


I will admit I find most scholars over attribute what is known, but I don't blame apologetic rhetoric for such.

The current trends in academia are far from an apologetic foundation in conclusion. None of my Professors showed bias in a conclusion.