Metacrock is still apologizing...

Discussion about the New Testament, apocrypha, gnostics, church fathers, Christian origins, historical Jesus or otherwise, etc.
Diogenes the Cynic
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Re: Metacrock is still apologizing...

Post by Diogenes the Cynic »

I don't find your post coherent enough to respond to in detail. Papias offers no evidence as to the authorship of Canonical Mark and Matthew because he doesn't say anything about Canonical Mark and Matthew. Mark is not derived even indirectly from a Petrine memoir and is, in fact, hostile to Peter and to all the disciples. Mark's Gospel depicts the disciples as fleeing when Jesus is arrested, has Peter deny Jesus, then ends without Peter or the disciples ever knowing about the resurrection. Why would a Petrine memoir end without Peter ever knowing about the resurrection or witnessing a risen Jesus?

Matthew copies almost all of Mark. That alone makes the traditional authorship all but impossible to support, along with the fact that it's not a sayings Gospel and was composed in Greek.

I would add that neither Mark or Matthew ever claim to be "Mark" and "Matthew." Mark never claims to be a memoir of Peter, and Matthew never caims to be an eyewitness account.
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spin
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Re: Metacrock is still apologizing...

Post by spin »

Metacrock wrote:
MrMacSon wrote:
Mental flatliner wrote:The gospels are from original witnesses and the only way to debunk them is to find other eye-witnesses with equal or greater authority.

Good luck with that.
What shows the gospels are from original witnesses?
too much to go into here. there's a great deal of it.
Oh what a cop out, Metacrock. Either you can make a case or you can't. Shifting the buck onto Bauckham who is not here to face grilling is no response. If you cannot support a claim in a scholarly manner, you don't make it.
Metacrock wrote:I suggest you read Jesus and the eye witneses by Bauckham.

http://books.google.com/books?id=zcVVp_ ... e&q&f=true

see my page on "community as author"

http://www.doxa.ws/Bible/Community.html
While I have no real problems with the general notion of a community as "author"—I'd hold that they are tradents of a tradition, rather than "authors" which assumes too much—, the basis of your arguments on the subject seem to be uncritical rehashes of Acts.
Dysexlia lures • ⅔ of what we see is behind our eyes
Roger Pearse
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Re: Metacrock is still apologizing...

Post by Roger Pearse »

Diogenes the Cynic wrote:
Metacrock wrote: Papias is evidence ... why would he not be?
Papias is not evidence because he described books which cannot be Canonical Matthew and Mark. Mark is not a memoir of Peter. Matthew is not a Hebrew Logia.
I think this is to confuse evidence and inference; and it's so easy to do. We can see t hat Papias is discussing Matthew and Mark, as the context makes clear. (I know some people try to question that; but as far as I can see, it is idle for us to second guess a man who has Papias' book in front of him complete!) His statements about the origins of them are therefore of the greatest interest. It would be rather rash for any man living today to contradict someone who knew some of the apostles - Aristion and John - personally. Which doesn't stop people doing it, of course.

The statements of some modern scholars (and nearly every atheist non-scholar) that the NT documents are anonymous and not by eye-witnesses contradict every statement from antiquity, and seem very curious to me. The authorship of the texts is attested in every ancient writer who mentions the subject. Indeed if the NT documents are anonymous, then so is every ancient text. No, this is obscurantism. And, once we see obscurantism, we don't have to look far to see a motive for it: there are, sadly, very obvious reasons why people living in the era of "if it feels good, do it" would find excuses to lower the authority of texts that say "do not commit adultery", and why those who control the values of that era would promote those who do. Just as the scholar of Victoriana will allow for the drift towards imperialism, he who reads modern writers must allow for the drift of today (if he can manage to).

Whether Christianity is true or not, it is pretty obvious that the associates of its founder (or their side-kicks) would write and talk about "the good old days", and that such writings would acquire a special status pretty quickly in the groups that followed him. It is obvious, because it is what people do when a movement of any kind gets founded. It is what usually happens in such circumstances, whoever the founder and whatever the group, and, ceteris paribus, we would look for it. (These days we make do with twitter feeds of old photographs)

To deny this, to suppose that all of the data is lost, and that we have instead some forged texts of unknown date - what ancient text says anything of the kind? -, despite the lack of any ancient testimony to this effect, and when we have people like Polycarp alive who knew the apostles personally as late as 155, and people like Irenaeus who knew Polycarp... this is something very familiar. It's the good old, bad old trick of "revisionism". It's taking the facts and trying to make them say the opposite. It's a pleasant scholarly game, particularly to play when "studying" someone else's classics, or someone else's religion, with much profession of objectivity and a snicker behind your hand; but it's not scholarship. The conclusions of 19th century revisionists have not received kind treatment in the last century, because they were basically arbitrary.

It is best to be sceptical. If Christianity did not exist, nobody would spend 5 minutes on this kind of perverse ingenuity. Why fill one's head with learned nonsense?

None of which means that Christianity is true, of course. It doesn't even mean that the statements within these texts are true. But it does mean that we shouldn't waste time on ideas fabricated to obstruct access to data about what happened back then.

IMHO, of course.

All the best,

Roger Pearse
Metacrock
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Re: Metacrock is still apologizing...

Post by Metacrock »

spin wrote: too much to go into here. there's a great deal of it.
Oh what a cop out, Metacrock. Either you can make a case or you can't. Shifting the buck onto Bauckham who is not here to face grilling is no response. If you cannot support a claim in a scholarly manner, you don't make it.
Metacrock wrote:I suggest you read Jesus and the eye witneses by Bauckham.

http://books.google.com/books?id=zcVVp_ ... e&q&f=true

see my page on "community as author"

http://www.doxa.ws/Bible/Community.html
While I have no real problems with the general notion of a community as "author"—I'd hold that they are tradents of a tradition, rather than "authors" which assumes too much—, the basis of your arguments on the subject seem to be uncritical rehashes of Acts.[/quote]


are you really that stupid? You clearly do not know what documentation is. you know nothing at all about debate are argument. therefore I have no reason to debate you. you are an ignorant fool and I have nothing to gain by beating an ignorant fool. you learn something about proper debate come back.
Last edited by Metacrock on Sat May 10, 2014 7:22 am, edited 1 time in total.
http://metacrock.blogspot.com/
Metacrock
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Re: Metacrock is still apologizing...

Post by Metacrock »

Diogenes the Cynic wrote:I don't find your post coherent enough to respond to in detail. Papias offers no evidence as to the authorship of Canonical Mark and Matthew because he doesn't say anything about Canonical Mark and Matthew. Mark is not derived even indirectly from a Petrine memoir and is, in fact, hostile to Peter and to all the disciples. Mark's Gospel depicts the disciples as fleeing when Jesus is arrested, has Peter deny Jesus, then ends without Peter or the disciples ever knowing about the resurrection. Why would a Petrine memoir end without Peter ever knowing about the resurrection or witnessing a risen Jesus?
again, you are so stupid you can't read a simple sentence. here it is as straight and in your face as I can make it: we do not need to know the individual identity of the original author. do you get that?

Let me make it big so you can see:

we do not need to know the individual identity of the original author. do you get that?


the original author did not make up the story he didn't start it. he wrote down what the oral traditions had said.So the community is the actual author. the community consists of eye witnesses authors and redactors and all of them work on the Gospel.

can you not understand that?
Matthew copies almost all of Mark. That alone makes the traditional authorship all but impossible to support, along with the fact that it's not a sayings Gospel and was composed in Greek.
It doesn't matter hw much of Mark is in Matthew. that's not cleaver it disprove either one. The Matthew community used Mark as their basis and rather than taking mot of it out they kept it intact and just added to it. what difference does that make?

did you not understand what I said that Mark did not invent the story nor was he the first to write about it. There are several versions of Mark and they constitute the modern version we have and this is the first of the canonical gospels, but it's not the first writing of the Gospel.
I would add that neither Mark or Matthew ever claim to be "Mark" and "Matthew." Mark never claims to be a memoir of Peter, and Matthew never caims to be an eyewitness account.

again stop shadow boxing with fudnies and listen to my point genius! that does not matter. that is unimportant. it doesn't' matter if it was Mark or not. so what? It was the community that saw Jesus and heard him preach.
http://metacrock.blogspot.com/
Metacrock
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Re: Metacrock is still apologizing...

Post by Metacrock »

Roger Pearse wrote:
Diogenes the Cynic wrote:
Metacrock wrote: Papias is evidence ... why would he not be?
Papias is not evidence because he described books which cannot be Canonical Matthew and Mark. Mark is not a memoir of Peter. Matthew is not a Hebrew Logia.
I think this is to confuse evidence and inference; and it's so easy to do. We can see t hat Papias is discussing Matthew and Mark, as the context makes clear. (I know some people try to question that; but as far as I can see, it is idle for us to second guess a man who has Papias' book in front of him complete!) His statements about the origins of them are therefore of the greatest interest. It would be rather rash for any man living today to contradict someone who knew some of the apostles - Aristion and John - personally. Which doesn't stop people doing it, of course.

The statements of some modern scholars (and nearly every atheist non-scholar) that the NT documents are anonymous and not by eye-witnesses contradict every statement from antiquity, and seem very curious to me. The authorship of the texts is attested in every ancient writer who mentions the subject. Indeed if the NT documents are anonymous, then so is every ancient text. No, this is obscurantism. And, once we see obscurantism, we don't have to look far to see a motive for it: there are, sadly, very obvious reasons why people living in the era of "if it feels good, do it" would find excuses to lower the authority of texts that say "do not commit adultery", and why those who control the values of that era would promote those who do. Just as the scholar of Victoriana will allow for the drift towards imperialism, he who reads modern writers must allow for the drift of today (if he can manage to).

Whether Christianity is true or not, it is pretty obvious that the associates of its founder (or their side-kicks) would write and talk about "the good old days", and that such writings would acquire a special status pretty quickly in the groups that followed him. It is obvious, because it is what people do when a movement of any kind gets founded. It is what usually happens in such circumstances, whoever the founder and whatever the group, and, ceteris paribus, we would look for it. (These days we make do with twitter feeds of old photographs)

To deny this, to suppose that all of the data is lost, and that we have instead some forged texts of unknown date - what ancient text says anything of the kind? -, despite the lack of any ancient testimony to this effect, and when we have people like Polycarp alive who knew the apostles personally as late as 155, and people like Irenaeus who knew Polycarp... this is something very familiar. It's the good old, bad old trick of "revisionism". It's taking the facts and trying to make them say the opposite. It's a pleasant scholarly game, particularly to play when "studying" someone else's classics, or someone else's religion, with much profession of objectivity and a snicker behind your hand; but it's not scholarship. The conclusions of 19th century revisionists have not received kind treatment in the last century, because they were basically arbitrary.

It is best to be sceptical. If Christianity did not exist, nobody would spend 5 minutes on this kind of perverse ingenuity. Why fill one's head with learned nonsense?

None of which means that Christianity is true, of course. It doesn't even mean that the statements within these texts are true. But it does mean that we shouldn't waste time on ideas fabricated to obstruct access to data about what happened back then.

IMHO, of course.

All the best,

Roger Pearse

excellent post, thank you.
http://metacrock.blogspot.com/
Roger Pearse
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Re: Metacrock is still apologizing...

Post by Roger Pearse »

You're welcome. :-)
Stephan Huller
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Re: Metacrock is still apologizing...

Post by Stephan Huller »

Roger that's not true. YOU ARE SELECTIVE ABOUT HOW YOU WEIGH THE EVIDENCE. The Marcionites (de Recta Fide) = the gospels don't come from eyewitnesses. I don't understand how you venerate the sources EXCEPT when it contradicts your presuppositions. If you ignore the Marcionites what you say is true, but what is it really worth then? You might as well stop pretending you are being fair.
Diogenes the Cynic
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Re: Metacrock is still apologizing...

Post by Diogenes the Cynic »

The internal evidence alone excludes any possibility of eyewitness testimony. They don't claim to come from witnesses. they are riddled with historical anachronisms and errors, they are clearly post-70 (no matter what Roger says, he knows the scholarship is not with him on this), they are written in educated Greek (even Mark. His Greek may superficially appear to be casual and crude, but his chiastic structures indicate formal training). Mark can be shown to be sometimes re-writing Septuagint narratives (see Randel Helms Gospel Fictions for an excellent demonstration of this via key words and phrasings which parallel the LXX in Greek). Matthew copies Mark. Luke is obviously very late.

The most I'd be willing to concede plausibility is that the Logia described by Papias could have been an ur-Q Gospel of some sort - an Aramaic or Hebrew sayings Gospel similar to Thomas which by some tradition or rumor had been attributed to Matthew, later been translated into Greek (although an Aramaic or Hebrew origin for Q would be hard to prove) then combined with Mark's narrative.

Mark as a secretary of Peter is simply untenable - it makes no such claim on its own behalf, it is filled with geographical and legal mistakes that could not have come from a witness, it clearly draws on the Old Testament for story material, it does not show any features of being a memoir, moreover it describes scenes that Peter, even according to GMark itself, did not witness. How did the trial before the Sanhedrin come from a memory of Peter? He wasn't there. Nobody was there but Jesus and the priests. How did Peter know what Jesus prayed at Gethsemane? How did he even know about the empty tomb, when Mark says the women didn't tell anybody?

In my opinion, the only parts of Mark that seem like they could have come from authentic memoirs are some of the Gailean healing stories, they contain Aramaisms, they are not gaudy, they at least have some tenor of remembered legend to them as opposed to de novo fiction, which I think a lot of Mark is.

Papias never indicates knowledge of the Canonical Gospels and doesn't quote them. He describes two books which later church fathers only guessed were Canonical Mark and Matthew.
Andrew
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Re: Metacrock is still apologizing...

Post by Andrew »

Diogenes the Cynic wrote:[...]How did Peter know what Jesus prayed at Gethsemane?[...]
That isn't hard to figure out. If Jesus prayed aloud, as at least one of the gospels tells us (and that isn't too hard to believe, even though I don't believe GMark specifically mentions that), then it isn't hard to see how the disciples could have heard what Jesus said before they fell asleep. It isn't as if we have a lengthy prayer. Jesus supposedly prayed for an hour before coming back to the sleeping disciples, yet we only have a couple lines of prayer. Thus, they could easily have heard the beginning of the prayer, but not the rest. This is a non-issue. The rest of your post asks reasonable questions which are not so easily answered.
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