How late might the gospels be?

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Bernard Muller
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Re: How late might the gospels be?

Post by Bernard Muller »

to Paul the Uncertain,
Mark's Jesus predicted that something really bad would happen in or around Jerusalem sometime, and that sometime after that, he would make an appearance.
According to what I read in Mk 13, that was very soon after the event of 70 in Judea & Jerusalem, even if "Mark" had Jesus saying he did not know the exact day & hour.
Two days could be soon, and we all know that a thousand years is like one day to God, so it's not even been two days yet.
No, I do not know that. Anyway "Mark" had Jesus saying twice that the Great Day will happen before the last humans of his generation died (9:1 & 13:30).
If Jesus' fielding his disciples' direct question were a "forecast," then we can't say definitely yes or no about whether it's still open. We can each, however, say whether or not it has communicated useful information to anybody about their future; some say yes, others say no. With a forecast, you don't even have to ask.
It is not a forecast, like for a weather forecast, where the forecaster does an educated "guess" about the weather four days in advance.
In Mark 13, "Mark" has Jesus telling what will happen in the future, not a guess about possibilities in the future.
Because "Mark" has Jesus using the future tense as in 13:19, 22, 24 (twice), 25 (twice), 26, 27 (twice), 31.
And, at 13:23, "But take heed; I have told you all things beforehand."
It certainly does not look that Jesus had been forecasting possibilities since 13:2.
Also in 13:37 "And what I say to you I say to all: Watch."" it does look that the great apocalyptic day will happen soon.
Yes. It is absurd to attribute to any storyteller agreement with something any of his characters say, based solely on a character saying it.
But it is clear that through Jesus as a character, it is the author who is speaking (13:14, 19 & 37). That device is often used by other authors. And I don't think that Mark 13 is story telling, but rather addressing some hot issues in a time of crisis.
It is equally absurd to call a storyteller honest or dishonest based solely on the story (s)he tells. We have no evidence that Mark led any congregation, for example, to answer one of Mr MacSon's (possibly rhetorical) questions.
These are not stories from a story teller, but a propagandist religious text written when the local situation was getting tense (mostly in the case of Mk 13).
"Mark", as a very educated and learned person (there were few of them among the many illiterate Christians then) had to be at least one of the leaders of the community.

Cordially, Bernard
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andrewcriddle
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Re: How late might the gospels be?

Post by andrewcriddle »

Paul the Uncertain wrote: Sat Jan 13, 2018 6:40 am andrew

Personally, I am comfortable with dating Mark early (a 65 "basement" is fine with me). However, even putting aside the difficulties with relying on Papias as an authority on the matter,
It would probably take over 20 years for the true origin of Mark to be lost and an erroneous tradition to replace it.
Why would the true origin of an anonymous work need to be lost and then replaced?

It takes at worst some hours to notice that apart from Jesus, Mark's most memorable (and influential on Christian writers) character among the 60 or so speaking parts is Peter. Plus, except for the John the Baptist scenes, the desert retreat, everything that happens to the natural Jesus after he is arrested, and the empty tomb scene, Peter is either explicitly present or arguably could be nearby.

In the absence of a competing authorship claim, might not any reader promptly conjecture that if the author had a principal source then this source was Peter? I doubt it'd take more than two decades for such an accessible, defensible and uncontested hypothesis to develop into a "tradition."

Maybe so; just saying how "probably" looks from here.
The claim by Papias is a bit more detailed than just Peter is the source for this Gospel

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MrMacSon
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Re: How late might the gospels be?

Post by MrMacSon »

archibald wrote: Tue Jan 16, 2018 9:04 am
MrMacSon wrote: Tue Jan 16, 2018 1:51 am .... if aspects of the NT narratives are indeed based on the texts of Josephus (and others), those NT narratives would have to have been written after Josephus's texts/books were circulated ie. after 80-95 AD.
Quick thought. Assuming one can find parallels between the gospels and Josephus, how would one know which influenced which?
One might expect Josephus to have given more indication or clues he was using the gospels ...


archibald wrote: Tue Jan 16, 2018 5:49 am Thanks. If I knew what your general thesis was, I might be clearer about what you are getting at. For example, in this particular set of mini-exchanges in the thread, I don't know if you are or aren't on the side of thinking (as stuart and isayre seem to) that the epistles and the gospels were written after Bar Kokhba.

Or maybe you are just exploring without having a set thesis in mind. But I do wonder what possibilities you are exploring. If it is just that orthodoxy came later than appears and that between 1st C Judaic origins and the 4th C there were other things going on, I don't have a problem with that.
What my general theses are has nothing to do with that post, or with many of the exchanges we have had. You seem intent on ignoring the content of or the points in the posts I make to you. I had hoped that that post - http://www.earlywritings.com/forum/view ... 511#p81511 - might encourage you to think more widely or laterally. Perhaps you might re-read it in such light.
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MrMacSon
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Re: How late might the gospels be?

Post by MrMacSon »

lsayre wrote: Tue Jan 16, 2018 4:29 am
When do we begin to witness the first definitive quotes and/or (more importantly) commentaries of Canonical texts which we can pin down to real people who lived within verifiable time-frames, and what are the earliest of those time-frames?
.
Yes, very good question. Church fathers' texts at the Catholic Encylcopedia website indicates that certain small passages or quips in their texts are from NT books, but without many (if any) indications the church fathers have actually engaged with the NT books cited.
archibald
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Re: How late might the gospels be?

Post by archibald »

MrMacSon wrote: Tue Jan 16, 2018 12:40 pm What my general theses are has nothing to do with that post, or with many of the exchanges we have had. You seem intent on ignoring the content of or the points in the posts I make to you. I had hoped that that post - http://www.earlywritings.com/forum/view ... 511#p81511 - might encourage you to think more widely or laterally. Perhaps you might re-read it in such light.
Or perhaps instead I'll just engage with people who are less apparently elusive.
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MrMacSon
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Re: How late might the gospels be?

Post by MrMacSon »

archibald wrote: Tue Jan 16, 2018 1:11 pm Or perhaps instead I'll just engage with people who are less apparently elusive.
lol. It's you who cannot engage with current discussions or propositions or arguments in them.

You didn't even acknowledge this answer specific to a specific question of yours -
archibald wrote: Tue Jan 16, 2018 9:04 am
MrMacSon wrote: Tue Jan 16, 2018 1:51 am .... if aspects of the NT narratives are indeed based on the texts of Josephus (and others), those NT narratives would have to have been written after Josephus's texts/books were circulated ie. after 80-95 AD.
Quick thought. Assuming one can find parallels between the gospels and Josephus, how would one know which influenced which?
MrMacSon wrote: Tue Jan 16, 2018 12:40 pm One might expect Josephus to have given more indication or clues he was using the gospels ...
Coward.
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neilgodfrey
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Re: How late might the gospels be?

Post by neilgodfrey »

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neilgodfrey
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Re: How late might the gospels be?

Post by neilgodfrey »

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archibald
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Re: How late might the gospels be?

Post by archibald »

neilgodfrey wrote: Tue Jan 16, 2018 2:13 pm
archibald wrote: Tue Jan 16, 2018 1:31 am
We could ask similar questions about Paul. Why worry about extracting financial contributions 'for the church' at such a time, etc.
If Mark had simply said what Paul said, that no one knows when, that the day will come without warning or any particular signs (like a thief in the night) then there would be nothing problematic about Mark 13 etc at all.
I'm not with you. The point surely is that in both cases, the second coming of Mister Big Ears was to be soon, before the listeners died. At least that's been my point when talking about such prophecies and expectations.
Last edited by archibald on Tue Jan 16, 2018 2:48 pm, edited 2 times in total.
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Re: How late might the gospels be?

Post by archibald »

neilgodfrey wrote: Tue Jan 16, 2018 2:17 pm Why not try something else: study Second Temple era Jewish thought, literature and apocalyptic writings and learn about how different ancient minds understood and wrote about these sorts of things?
Possibly. I also hear a site called Vridar might be worth visiting. But then I heard that it's run by a guy who buys into Carrier's outer space Jesus.

Also, I wasn't assuming either Mark or Paul were Judean Jewish, or even necessarily Jewish.
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