Biblical Criticism & History Forum - earlywritings.com

Hawthorne wrote:I would like to see a thoughtful discussion with mental.

Me too. I'm glad that he's here. Lively discussion usually also requires lively disagreement.

For that matter, I'm glad that Metacrock is also here. And everybody else here too.

I tried that already when I mentioned differences in Luke and Matthew, the inclusion of 90% of Mark in Matthew, and the testimony of Papias, the first testimony (that I know of) about the existence of any written gospels, a full 60-90 years after the crucifixion. He didn't show any willingness to have a thoughtful discussion about those points, so I don't expect anyone to get anywhere with that.

stevencarrwork wrote:

Metacrock wrote:
this is common knowledge.

It's follows the organizational pattern of the psalms. It doesn't' have to talk about guards to talk about death and dying and being executed and so on.

that demonstrates that it was an old tradition because its' coming form the Jewish Christians. that means it's pre temple, and Koester places it mid first century. So it's about equivalent to the writing of 1 Corinthians. It's only about 20 years (18) after the event. Still in the life time of eye witnesses.

This is all wild-eyed fantasy.

O now there's a brilliant comment. wow I never considered that way before, that really conveniences me.

Diogenes the Cynic wrote:>there are several examples of false resurrections being exposed.

Like what?

Resurrection was not a Jewish Messianic expectation, so there's no reason Pilate would have thought it would be faked. A claim of resurrection would have meant nothing to the Jews, so why worry about a hoax?

Why didn't Mark know about the guards? Mark is Matthew's source for the Empty Tomb story after all.

If knew about the cases in Rome that were popular then might have. In any case it wasn't his idea. it was the Sanhedrin who feared a hoax and ask him for hte guards. he was trying to play politics and keep them happy.

MrMacSon wrote:

Roger Pearse wrote:

Diogenes the Cynic wrote:The Gospels are not from witnesses. We have no writings from witnesses. The authorship traditions of the Gospels are 2nd Century attributions to originally anonymous, untitled, unprovenanced books which were written (at the earliest) 40-70 years after the crucifixion. The authors were not disciples or witnesses and did not know disciples or witnesses. The authorship traditions are regarded as spurious by the vast majority of critical scholars and I can go into detail as to why.

Unfortunately every scrap of ancient evidence on the subject contradicts these claims. You know this, of course, which is why you try to claim authority to discard data. This us, erm, brave of you.

I suggest you think much more sceptically about whatever it is you are reading.

All the best, Roger Pearse

What writings do we have from contemporary witnesses?

What evidence is there for authorship of the gospels?

those are irrelevant issues. The community was the author. scholars no longer thin of individual authors of Gospels. Think "skeptically? is not a panacea that enables you to think better. It can just as easily be a lazy way of denying truth and supporting prejudices.

I suggest you try the Moast approach. self criticism.

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. 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

TedM wrote:Are you kidding? You are just dead wrong in saying that the gospels claim to be eye witness accounts. They read like a story about a man, his sayings, and doings. How is that information obtained? It could be from 1st hand, 2nd hand, 3rd hand, etc, imagination, scriptural inspiration, and on and on. Do you know that 90% of Mark is included in Matthew? Do you know that Papias, our first reference to the gospels, wrote that Matthew wrote down the 'sayings' of Jesus? Not at all like the book of Matthew. And that Mark wrote things he heard from Peter, but not in a chronological manner. Mark actually is quite chronological. Our source Papias, as well as comparisons of the gospels supports the idea that these works are compilations of various sources by at least some people that may not have been eyewitnesses at all.

Most people simply don't know this stuff. They think that the gospels are straight from the disciples mouths.

(1) you are trying to judge Gosepls by modern criteria without knowing anything about the literary genres of the age.

(2) I don't think that well read in modern terms, much less ancinet.

Peter Kirby wrote:

Hawthorne wrote:I would like to see a thoughtful discussion with mental.

Me too. I'm glad that he's here. Lively discussion usually also requires lively disagreement.

For that matter, I'm glad that Metacrock is also here. And everybody else here too.

thanks man. I'm glad I'm here too. i still you would come to my boards.

http://www.doxa.ws/forum/

Metacrock wrote: ... The community was the author. scholars no longer thin of individual authors of Gospels.

I think that is highly likely; & over several generations - cumulative elaborations

TedM wrote:I tried that already when I mentioned differences in Luke and Matthew, the inclusion of 90% of Mark in Matthew, and the testimony of Papias, the first testimony (that I know of) about the existence of any written gospels, a full 60-90 years after the crucifixion. He didn't show any willingness to have a thoughtful discussion about those points, so I don't expect anyone to get anywhere with that.

wrong. it's been well established that the Gospel material surrunding the passion narrative was in writing by mid first century. 19th century atheists tried to date the gospel so late. No one since the 1930s has taken that seriously. The trend today is much earlier dats. For most of the 20th century Marks was put at 70. Matthew at 80, Luke at 90 and John 95-100. But now there's a trend to put Mark pre destruction, and Matthew at 70 or even earlier. Some have put John in the 60s.

Scholars have no taken that 200 year stuff seriously for a long time.

the atheist community on on the net has sort made it's own pseudo world of scholarship that doesn't' accept real academic scholars. They want to barrow the methods and background information of academic work but not accept their conclusions.

I remember a bunch of robbery horse guys on the sec web who had their own pet theories that were in totally contradiction to the climate of opinion in academia. One guy wanted to date the John Rylands Fragment like 200 A.D. this is all obviously just an attempt to dismiss the Gospels.

Atheists have worked hard to remove the Gospels form consideration as evidence and to threat like they don't really even exist. The gospels are treated by atheist as though they are absolute worthless when it comes to history, no scholar anywhere does that.

It's not hard to find Biblical scholarship that supports the Gospels better than most atheists do. Even stuff taht reject them as historical treats them better than atheist do.