Richard Carrier on gMark parallel with Jesus ben Ananias

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ghost
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Re: Richard Carrier on gMark parallel with Jesus ben Ananias

Post by ghost »

Stephan Huller wrote:Exactly. Stupid theories manifest their stupidity when you take them apart. The bottom line is why choose a 'historical basis' for the gospel story in a convoluted (and ultimately silly) transportation from the time after the Common Era to Before the Common Era? If there are no ancient witnesses for an idea it probably didn't happen that way.
It seems to me liturgy, architecture and iconography transmit the info more reliably than the early priests.
Stephan Huller
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Re: Richard Carrier on gMark parallel with Jesus ben Ananias

Post by Stephan Huller »

You wrote:
It seems to me liturgy, architecture and iconography transmit the info more reliably than the early priests.
The only reason that 'this seems to you' to be so is because you can make up complete nonsense and effectively make the liturgy, architecture and iconography say whatever you want them to say. 'Here is a rock,' you say 'this rock tells us that Christ was really Caesar.' But who is convinced by this nonsense? Since you can't find actual people to say what you need them to say, you take in animate objects and twist their testimony into whatever you need them to say. But everyone here recognizes that what you do is akin to listing your dog as a character witness on a job resume.
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maryhelena
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Re: Richard Carrier on gMark parallel with Jesus ben Ananias

Post by maryhelena »

MrMacSon wrote:Plenty of convoluted things happened to lots of narratives, & texts about narratives of those times, as you have well shown in several ways in recent weeks, Stephan.

I'd contend the transportation of narratives was from BCE times to CE times, with likely redaction and conflation of ideas (some purported to be real, some not) and addition of ideas, to develop & 'flesh-out' the human character.
Yes, lets not forget the Toldot Yeshu and Alexander Jannaeus...... ;)
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The Crow
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Re: Richard Carrier on gMark parallel with Jesus ben Ananias

Post by The Crow »

ghost wrote:
The Crow wrote:OK which one do we go with here? Josephus says Marc Antony beheaded him and the Roman Historian Cassius says he was crucified. Then we find Plutarch saying he was beheaded by Antony.
Also crucified by Mark Antony:

http://www.vanfrieslandfilm.nl/pages/myalbum/09.jpg
Wait a minute. One source says he was beheaded by Antony, well two if you count Plutarch. My question is what sources do we have that plainly states Plutarch witnessed this event? Or his Plutarch writing only what he heard happened?
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Re: Richard Carrier on gMark parallel with Jesus ben Ananias

Post by Kunigunde Kreuzerin »

Our Bernard has quoted a nice list of similarities between Lincoln and Kennedy (as a counterargument). Even if you disagree with him, it's great fun! Note especially the last point.
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Re: Richard Carrier on gMark parallel with Jesus ben Ananias

Post by Stephan Huller »

Yes, lets not forget the Toldot Yeshu and Alexander Jannaeus...... ;)
Yes the tradition starts in 90 BCE and then ends with Jesus being hanged from a carob tree ... under Queen Helen, who is either 'Queen Helena of Adiabene' הלני המלכה‎ c. 70 CE) or Constantine's mother. Does anyone really have any confidence that the Toledoth Yeshu says what Mary Helena says that it says? Can it really be used to support a crucifixion of Antigonus? Of course not. No one really believes this who has actually read the original material. Any reasonable person would conclude that the rabbinic sources know something perhaps but owing to faulty transmission and being forced to live in European ghettos any accurate reporting has been mingled with complete nonsense and abracadabra. The information basically says that Jesus's death and birth were separated by 160 or 400 years. There is no way to use the Toledoth Yeshu as proof for anything. It's about as reliable as tractate Gittin's claim that Nero was a proselyte or that Titus died from the bite of a gnat after he destroyed the temple or that Jesus and a famous rabbi were in an Alexandrian tavern commenting upon the sexiness of a barmaid.
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neilgodfrey
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Re: Richard Carrier on gMark parallel with Jesus ben Ananias

Post by neilgodfrey »

Kunigunde Kreuzerin wrote:Our Bernard has quoted a nice list of similarities between Lincoln and Kennedy (as a counterargument). Even if you disagree with him, it's great fun! Note especially the last point.
Don't tell me. Bernard completely sidesteps Carrier's and dozens of other scholars' arguments related to the literary practice of mimesis of the day.

Knowing Bernard he could use the Kennedy-Johnson parallels to prove that a child who is the spitting image of its parents was really adopted or that identical twins are not genetically related.
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maryhelena
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Re: Richard Carrier on gMark parallel with Jesus ben Ananias

Post by maryhelena »

Interesting idea from Carrier. If Jesus was not historical - if he was a historicized Pauline celestial Christ figure (and of course if Jesus was simply a composite literary figure) - he could be set down in whatever historical time period his creators so desired. Also, of course, such a Jesus could be moved around to other time periods i.e. updated storyline....as in gLuke.


Richard Carrier: On the Historicity of Jesus: Why We Might Have Reason To Doubt: pages 284-285

What is said about Ben Stada could be ignored entirely. The apostate “Jesus” under Jannaeus is still explicitly identified as ‘Jesus the Nazarene” and as being stoned and crucified ‘on the day before the Passover (on ‘a Sabbath eve’ even) for ‘practicing magic and leading Israel astray’. So we clearly see that the Jews who compiled the Bablonian Talmud only knew of a Jesus executed under Jannaeus, not any Jesus executed under Pilate. And Epiphanius confirms that some Torah-observant Christians, from the original sect of Christianity, actually did preach that. So there was some sort of Gospel circulating in the East, from a more conservative and faithful descendant of the original Christian sect, that narrated a Jesus born of a virgin Mary (as the Jewish polemic in the Talmud entails these Christians were claiming) in Bethlehem (according to the Christians themselves who adopted this version of events) and executed under Jannaeus for working miracles and ‘leading people astray’.

How can the descendants of the original sect of Christians have come to believe Jesus lived and died a hundred years before our Gospels say he did? It is nearly impossible to imagine how such a doctrine could have developed. Unless there was no historical Jesus. Then he could be placed in history wherever each sect desired. In other words, if originally Jesus was not placed in history, then when he was placed in history - after the sects had split, ideologically and geographically - each sect could place him differently, developing their own myths in accord with their own needs and creativity.

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Those Christians seek him everywhere.
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That damned, elusive Jesus Christ.

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Stephan Huller
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Re: Richard Carrier on gMark parallel with Jesus ben Ananias

Post by Stephan Huller »

So therefore it follows we ignore the unreliability of the Toledoth Yeshu? Building castles made of sand.

Never build too much on secondary sources like this.
ghost
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Re: Richard Carrier on gMark parallel with Jesus ben Ananias

Post by ghost »

The Crow wrote:Wait a minute. One source says he was beheaded by Antony, well two if you count Plutarch. My question is what sources do we have that plainly states Plutarch witnessed this event? Or his Plutarch writing only what he heard happened?
Antigonus and Plutarch are not contemporary.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plutarch
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