Fictional Jesus Synthesis

[MrMacSon]

I just put up a new article on this issue here: http://www.rationalrevolution.net/artic ... thesis.htm

Basically, I'm saying the case that the Gospel of Mark is an entirely fictional story is much more broadly supported by serious scholarship than most people realize. In fact, devout Christian scholars accept that the Gospel of Mark is fictional. It seems that what many have not done, however, is fully acknowledge the implications of the GMark being fictional. That's essentially what my book is about, but the point I'm making here is that the root of my argument, that GMark is fictional, is actually well supported by a broad cross section of scholars and research.

While I do not agree Mark is the first Gospel, rather one built off a proto-Gospel which had a different function before evangelism, I find one observation extremely important and not given proper weight

Mainstream biblical scholarship, and the entire popular concept of where our knowledge of Jesus comes from, is all dependent on the supposition that the Gospels are rooted in some early “oral tradition.” Yet the reality today is that the hypothesis of “oral traditions” underlying the Gospel narratives has been completely and thoroughly disproven by reputable scholarship. This reality does not yet seem to have sunken in, but it is the reality.

... the above point is the one which should be pounded on until it sinks in. No advance can happen until this is understood.

I think one must distinguish between the reliability of oral tradition and the existence of oral tradition. One the one hand, serious concerns have been raised about the accuracy of oral tradition, on the other hand, it is entirely plausible that Christians were telling stories about Jesus before any Gospels were written.

Oral history is fake. It's anything a scholar wants to make up.

It's also unnecessary to explain Christianity.

The change of terminology from "oral tradition" to "oral history" does not inspire confidence in me that you and Andrew are speaking about the same phenomenon. Nobody in this debate seems to mean the same thing when the term is used; everybody winds up speaking past each other.

To assume that Christians did not pass on information orally — or that, even if they did, such oral information never found its way into our texts — is absurd on its face, so it is clear that this is not what you mean either by "oral tradition" or by "oral history." It would be helpful to define the terms at the outset, very carefully and completely.

We can probably conflate both terms to consider the notion of the "history of oral tradition in early Christianity" (and not just for the sake of conflation to merge the different terms).

The extent to which information was passed on orally in early Christianity is probably never going to be clear.

That there are often appeals to 'scripture' in the Christian texts, such as the Pauline epistles, might be significant evidence that the use of texts predominated.

Also, to what extent would discussions and oral communication be about a variety of concepts about a nebulous Christ-messiah, or Jesus, or other figures. Would there have been a consistent enough single or central oral tradition to note?

[Ben C. Smith]

The extent to which information was passed on orally in early Christianity is probably never going to be clear.

I agree. What I object to is the assumption that it did not happen, which is tantamount to a claim that new information was created in early Christianity only in texts. But that assumption is so very gratuitous that I suspect it is not what is actually at stake. I suspect that the "oral history" or "oral tradition" being ruled out is some kind of controlled endeavor, after the pattern of the rabbinical schools or some such: that it is (as Andrew suggested) not the existence of orality in early Christianity but rather the accuracy or controlled nature of it, or perhaps its pervasiveness or specific applicability to certain issues of high profile (including, for example, claims that the synoptic similarities among Matthew, Mark, and Luke can be explained by oral transmission, claims which I myself would roundly reject).

Also, to what extent would discussions and oral communication be about a variety of concepts about a nebulous Christ-messiah, or Jesus, or other figures. Would there have been a consistent enough single or central oral tradition to note?

I doubt there was anything centralized or consistent about it. But my candidate for most likely source of oral material which made it into our Christian texts is the liturgical stuff.

[MrMacSon]

... I suspect that the "oral history" or "oral tradition" being ruled out is some kind of controlled endeavor, after the pattern of the rabbinical schools or some such: that it is (as Andrew suggested) not the existence of orality in early Christianity but rather the accuracy or controlled nature of it, or perhaps its pervasiveness or specific applicability to certain issues of high profile ...

I don't disagree with all the points you make. When I was making my post (which was a general one) I was thinking about the Jewish Oral Torah tradition and realised that was a long-standing tradition, which contrasts with an early Christian oral 'tradition' which would have been a more local and parochial discussion of and passing on of concepts.

[John2]

I had a brief moment to look at Dykstra's book Mark, Canonizer of Paul and this statement on page 19 regarding Jesus' teaching is standing out to me:

At the very point where that very question is posed directly to Jesus, an answer comes back that frustrates all of the hopes and expectations the hearer has amassed: "You know the commandments." In other words, Jesus himself answers by saying that he has nothing new to say. He can only refer his questioner to the Old Testament. What then is this "new" gospel chat he's preaching all the time?

To me Jesus is a proto-Karaite. Like the Karaites, he rejects the oral Torah of the Pharisees (which Josephus says was the law of the land at the time) and emphasizes the written Torah (and the other parts of the OT). For Jesus (and Karaites), what is new is what is old, like in the Dead Sea Scroll 1QpHab (col. 2):

... it concerns the unfaithful of the New [Covenant] in that they have not believed in the Covenant of God [and have profaned] His holy Name.

As Lim notes in an article regarding the concept "the new covenant":

... the [Dead Sea Scrolls] sectarians and early church were the only ones to have used the concept of “the new covenant” from the prophecy of Jeremiah. Other Jews did not comment on “the new covenant” nor did they use it in their writings.

http://www.christianorigins.div.ed.ac.u ... t-seventy/

And since, in my view (and as is commonly thought) the DSS sect was anti-Pharisaic, the use of this uncommon concept by them (and by Jesus, who was also anti-Pharisaic) would have struck the Pharisees (and the majority of the people who were under their sway according to Josephus) as being a new kind of teaching, like Karaite Judaism, which remains controversial in Rabbinic Judaism to this day.

As Davilla, for example, writes regarding the new covenant in the DSS being a renewed old covenant:

Jeremiah's prophecy did not lead them to a rejection of the old covenant, but its renewal. The covenanters are to redouble their efforts and avoid the pitfalls into which their fathers had fallen by acting in accordance with the exact interpretation of the law ... This renewal of the covenant is communal and is expressed in an annual ceremony performed in the third month, at Shavuot, traditionally celebrated as the giving of the law on Mount Sinai.

https://books.google.com/books?id=U7-Qe ... ls&f=false

And since their opponents were the Pharisees (as commonly thought), there must have been something about their teaching that did not sit well with them, and I think it was at least in part their rejection of the oral Torah and reliance on the written Torah, like the Sadducees, Karaites and Jesus and other Fourth Philosophers (who Josephus says had similarly altered "the customs of our fathers"). They were all opposed by the Pharisees (or by Rabbinic Jews) for teaching this. From the perspective of the Pharisees (and Rabbinic Judaism), it is "radical."

My thinking is that since the majority of the DSS are dated to the Herodian era and appear to be anti-Pharisaic, that they are the older writings that were collected along with newer writings that were created by the Fourth Philosophy. And I think that despite their rejection of the oral Torah, they had more or less branched out from the Pharisees, like Josephus says of Fourth Philosophers, who "agree in all other things with the Pharisaic notions" (Ant. 18.1.6), since the DSS also exhibit Pharisaic "notions," most notably belief in the resurrection of the dead. And Jesus too rejects the Pharisees' oral Torah and believes in the resurrection of the dead (which is why he castigates the Sadducees for not believing in it in Mk. 12:18-27). To me Jesus seems like a Fourth Philosopher of the sort Josephus mentions in War. 2.13.4:

These were such men as deceived and deluded the people under pretense of divine inspiration, but were for procuring innovations and changes of the government; and these prevailed with the multitude to act like madmen, and went before them into the wilderness, as pretending that God would there show them the signals of liberty.

I think these are the kinds of people Jesus is talking about when he says in Mk. 13:5-6, "Watch out that no one deceives you. Many will come in my name, claiming, ‘I am he,’ and will deceive many."

[hakeem]

I just put up a new article on this issue here: http://www.rationalrevolution.net/artic ... thesis.htm

Basically, I'm saying the case that the Gospel of Mark is an entirely fictional story is much more broadly supported by serious scholarship than most people realize. In fact, devout Christian scholars accept that the Gospel of Mark is fictional. It seems that what many have not done, however, is fully acknowledge the implications of the GMark being fictional. That's essentially what my book is about, but the point I'm making here is that the root of my argument, that GMark is fictional, is actually well supported by a broad cross section of scholars and research.

I agree that gMark is a fictional story however I do not accept or find any evidence that the author of gMark did not want people to believe the invented story was true.

The author of gMark appears to have invented a story to explain the fall of the Jewish Temple c 70 CE and that fictional story later became the basis of a new religion some time later. In effect, when the author of gMark story fabricated the story there was no intention of starting a new religion.

It must be noted that the so-called Pauline letters are written to Churches in the Roman Empire which imply that stories of Jesus were known and believed prior to the writing of those very letters.

Essentially, the Jesus story of gMark was fabricated after c 70 CE and before all the Pauline letters were invented.

[neilgodfrey]

There is some discussion of oral traditions or oral history here. Has anyone read and rebutted the arguments in the scholarly literature that seriously question the oral tradition model behind the gospels?

[neilgodfrey]

There is some discussion of oral traditions or oral history here. Has anyone read and rebutted the arguments in the scholarly literature that seriously question the oral tradition model behind the gospels?

About a year ago I did mention some of the works that have addressed the problems with the oral tradition model of gospel origins and was basically scoffed at for standing contrary to generations of well established scholarship. I don't know that anyone ever followed up on any of the work challenging the model, however.

[neilgodfrey]

I just put up a new article on this issue here: http://www.rationalrevolution.net/artic ... thesis.htm

Basically, I'm saying the case that the Gospel of Mark is an entirely fictional story is much more broadly supported by serious scholarship than most people realize. In fact, devout Christian scholars accept that the Gospel of Mark is fictional. It seems that what many have not done, however, is fully acknowledge the implications of the GMark being fictional. That's essentially what my book is about, but the point I'm making here is that the root of my argument, that GMark is fictional, is actually well supported by a broad cross section of scholars and research.

.....the history of modern Euro-American study of Christian origins, and especially in the form of the application of comparison to early Christianity, was never a genuine attempt to acquire new knowledge and to more accurately describe and understand the formation of earliest Christianity. Rather, modern Euro-American biblical scholarship has been simply an exercise in apologetics, using comparison to shore up the uniqueness of Christianity against a so-called “parallelomania” for ancient polytheistic cultures.[1] Even more importantly, comparison became a strategy adopted to defend the boundaries that define group self-identity, especially Protestant group self-identification against Roman Catholic social boundary definitions.....

J.C. Hanges: http://www.bibleinterp.com/articles/201 ... 8029.shtml

It is the idea that the gospel narrative (in all its versions) has a historical core that is the foundation of the identity apologetics underlying Christian origins studies.

I'd love some anthropologists to turn their investigations to the field of biblical studies as a whole.

[neilgodfrey]

I just put up a new article on this issue here: http://www.rationalrevolution.net/artic ... thesis.htm

Basically, I'm saying the case that the Gospel of Mark is an entirely fictional story is much more broadly supported by serious scholarship than most people realize. In fact, devout Christian scholars accept that the Gospel of Mark is fictional. It seems that what many have not done, however, is fully acknowledge the implications of the GMark being fictional. That's essentially what my book is about, but the point I'm making here is that the root of my argument, that GMark is fictional, is actually well supported by a broad cross section of scholars and research.

Comment --

.....the history of modern Euro-American study of Christian origins, and especially in the form of the application of comparison to early Christianity, was never a genuine attempt to acquire new knowledge and to more accurately describe and understand the formation of earliest Christianity. Rather, modern Euro-American biblical scholarship has been simply an exercise in apologetics, using comparison to shore up the uniqueness of Christianity against a so-called “parallelomania” for ancient polytheistic cultures.[1] Even more importantly, comparison became a strategy adopted to defend the boundaries that define group self-identity, especially Protestant group self-identification against Roman Catholic social boundary definitions.....

J.C. Hanges: http://www.bibleinterp.com/articles/201 ... 8029.shtml

It is the idea that the gospel narrative (in all its versions) has a historical core that is the foundation of the identity apologetics underlying Christian origins studies.

I'd love some anthropologists to turn their investigations to the field of biblical studies as a whole.

[neilgodfrey]

I just put up a new article on this issue here: http://www.rationalrevolution.net/artic ... thesis.htm

Basically, I'm saying the case that the Gospel of Mark is an entirely fictional story is much more broadly supported by serious scholarship than most people realize. In fact, devout Christian scholars accept that the Gospel of Mark is fictional. It seems that what many have not done, however, is fully acknowledge the implications of the GMark being fictional. That's essentially what my book is about, but the point I'm making here is that the root of my argument, that GMark is fictional, is actually well supported by a broad cross section of scholars and research.

Comment --

.....the history of modern Euro-American study of Christian origins, and especially in the form of the application of comparison to early Christianity, was never a genuine attempt to acquire new knowledge and to more accurately describe and understand the formation of earliest Christianity. Rather, modern Euro-American biblical scholarship has been simply an exercise in apologetics, using comparison to shore up the uniqueness of Christianity against a so-called “parallelomania” for ancient polytheistic cultures.[1] Even more importantly, comparison became a strategy adopted to defend the boundaries that define group self-identity, especially Protestant group self-identification against Roman Catholic social boundary definitions.....

J.C. Hanges: http://www.bibleinterp.com/articles/201 ... 8029.shtml

It is the idea that the gospel narrative (in all its versions) has a historical core that is the foundation of the identity apologetics underlying Christian origins studies. Historicity, mediated however imperfectly via oral tradition, is the guard against "parallelomania" and muddying Christianity with inappropriate entities.

I'd love some anthropologists to turn their investigations to the field of biblical studies as a whole.

(No, that the gospels are fictional or might be entirely fictional does not mean it necessarily follows there was no historical Jesus. That's a separate question entirely, and actually secondary to a valid scholarly approach to the evidence we have for the study of gospel origins.)