Biblical Criticism & History Forum - earlywritings.com

And here's a beautiful passive-aggressive one, those really get into my system every now and then, and I'll allow myself a little lashing-out:

Peter:
Your opening gambit is wrong. It is definitely settled, and has been from the beginning, that Mark was not first. Matthew was first. The historical evidence makes this fact certain. Modern scholars can only say Mark was first by denying ALL the historical evidence and by having recourse to lit. crit. arguments that are tortuous, in some cases absurd, reliant on plainly false assumptions, and that anyway can never trump the historical evidence -- as a matter of logic. I wrote a book on the subject: The Authenticity of the Gospels. You don't have to read it (though you can on Academia). As for Matthew's Nazarene prophecy, I have no answer. But yours will not work. Sorry. Best wishes anyway, and congrats on at least trying.

Me:
Peter, you are making a mockery out of yourself, and you are being very rude towards Dick

Peter:
Dick did not argue for Markan priority. He assumed it from scholarly consensus. I attacked the scholarly consensus. I did not attack Dick. Of course, if Dick pays attention to that attack he will have reason to reject his assumption. In addition it is not wrong to follow a consensus as an initial presumption in order to argue something else. And I didn't say Dick was wrong so to proceed. He would, however, be wrong to continue so to proceed unless he can show the scholarly consensus stands up to criticism, which it doesn't and can't.

Therefore I was not rude to Dick. You mock me, if not also yourself, by saying so.

My response? I just "Liked" his one

mlinssen wrote: ↑Fri Oct 02, 2020 7:15 am And here's a beautiful passive-aggressive one, those really get into my system every now and then, and I'll allow myself a little lashing-out:

Peter:
Your opening gambit is wrong. It is definitely settled, and has been from the beginning, that Mark was not first. Matthew was first. The historical evidence makes this fact certain. Modern scholars can only say Mark was first by denying ALL the historical evidence and by having recourse to lit. crit. arguments that are tortuous, in some cases absurd, reliant on plainly false assumptions, and that anyway can never trump the historical evidence -- as a matter of logic. I wrote a book on the subject: The Authenticity of the Gospels. You don't have to read it (though you can on Academia). As for Matthew's Nazarene prophecy, I have no answer. But yours will not work. Sorry. Best wishes anyway, and congrats on at least trying.

Me:
Peter, you are making a mockery out of yourself, and you are being very rude towards Dick

Peter:
Dick did not argue for Markan priority. He assumed it from scholarly consensus. I attacked the scholarly consensus. I did not attack Dick. Of course, if Dick pays attention to that attack he will have reason to reject his assumption. In addition it is not wrong to follow a consensus as an initial presumption in order to argue something else. And I didn't say Dick was wrong so to proceed. He would, however, be wrong to continue so to proceed unless he can show the scholarly consensus stands up to criticism, which it doesn't and can't.

Therefore I was not rude to Dick. You mock me, if not also yourself, by saying so.

My response? I just "Liked" his one

JW:
He doesn't know dick (I wonder how that translates into Dutch?).


Joseph


Skeptical Textual Criticism

LOL! Yes, difficult, that's typical US slang. But the words are similar in Dutch indeed; he doesn't know "balls" about it, or "ass" - it's almost the exact translation and the funny thing is that there is only one valid word, exactly like what you say

ARGUMENT FROM RELATIVE CREDIBILITY OF PAUL VERSES PRESIDENT TRUMP

1) Just watched a video of President Trump claiming that he is fine and going on a walk. I have known who Trump is my entire life and the video was presented by CNN which I have been familiar with my entire adult life. Even though this is first hand, extended, current, visual and audio evidence presented by the preeminent credible information source of our time, I have no idea if Trump is really fine or going on a walk (really wanted to add the related MP video here).

2) In contrast, we can be almost certain that whatever is used to try and determine what Paul originally wrote in order to prove that Jesus existed is based on what was copied many and edited unknown times by many and unknown editors, is mainly based on two individual words, "brother" and "born", was originally written 2,000 years ago, was written in a different language that lacked modern grammatical conventions and with and on likely materials with limited useful lives, and preserved by an institution who's primary historical assertion is that God sacrificed himself to himself in order to put an end to his own Eternal law and then resurrected himself to God knows where. In general Paul testifies that he is not interested in historical information provided by people. He says his primary source of information about Jesus comes from God and from Jesus, but only after Jesus died. Add to this that we also have entire letters which the Church hasn't just taught but murdered for that for almost all of the Church's history the Church asserted were written by Paul but now generally confesses he did not. The Church also confesses that it had motivation early on to make Paul look like a witness to historical Jesus and changing/adding one word or phrase in an entire letter is exactly what would and was often done to claim a letter as support for an existing conclusion.

3) Extant Paul is almost certainly and exponentially more credible than President Trump, therefore when it says that Paul referred to someone he knew as a brother of the lord there is no need to provide any qualifications such as the above limiting Paul's credibility. Did Jesus Exist?.

4) Therefore Jesus existed.

.
Argument from the power of comic speech bubbles expressions

1. What is to say to someone who believes that Jesus didn't exist?

2. ???
- WHA ? - x#Qxpaqr4<E ????? - WTF ? -
- OMG !!! - GRRR! - AAAAAHHHHHHHHHHH !!! -
- HA-HA-HA ! -
- ZAP !!! - CRASH !!! - BAM !!! - BOOOM !!! -

3. - BAZINGA ! -

I managed through 30 seconds of that, just about

When I first started reading Paul, I managed to get to chapter 5

If anything, it is clear that Paul is continuously defending against something, he can never have been first to anything, and the fact that the Church claims it makes it all the more dubious - none of us thinks Matthew was first, I hope

The first question is: what is Paul defending against? You can guess my opinion on that, I think

1. In Galatians, Paul refers to a minimally-human-but-certainly-existing Jesus: someone's brother, and born of a woman.

2. Galatians is found in the same Bible as the Gospels, which tell the story of Jesus of Nazareth.

3. Jesus of Nazareth can only be one and the same as the Jesus of Galatians.

4. Therefore, Jesus of Nazareth existed.

.
1. Archaeologists have identified the deadly dance floor where John the Baptist was killed softly by the most dangerous temptress of all times.
2. The Bible is right after all and GMark is literally true.
3. Therefore Jesus existed.

A reconstruction of the courtyard where Salome's dance have taken place. (Győző Vörös)

Jokes aside, here are my main reason Jesus existed:

IF
- Jesus' disciples (and James) never became Christians (see http://historical-jesus.info/108.html).
- At least one of Jesus' disciples offered his testimony (c/w with anecdotal material) about Jesus' ministry to the Markan community (see http://historical-jesus.info/20.html and http://historical-jesus.info/co1a.html).
- This Jesus was a "humble" poor Jew, with no divine power or origin (see http://historical-jesus.info/6.html and http://historical-jesus.info/21.html and http://historical-jesus.info/digest.html).
- This Markan Christian community, at the time the gospel was written, and in view of Jesus being elevated by Paul as a Divinity, was expecting Jesus, in his human phase, would have shown divine power and/or origin and not exhibited failures or objectionable conduct/sayings.
- "Mark" wanted to include bits and pieces of the testimony heard from eyewitness(es) in order to provide his gospel with an air of authenticity.

Then we have a dilemma:

- How can extraordinary things requiring divine intervention be added to a human Jesus and his story when the testimony about him did not include any?
- How to use Jesus' disciples when those did not have any reasons to embrace later Christian tenets (Jesus as resurrected & Christ, resurrections, meaning of the "passion", etc.)?
- How can failures or objectionable conduct/sayings (either from Jesus or his disciples) heard from the disciple(s) be cancelled?

But if my five points are correct, then we should find, in Mark's gospel, the author facing that dilemma and providing solutions. And here they are:

Solution 1: Disciples getting gag order from Jesus:
a) NOT saying Jairus' daughter was resurrected (5:43)
b) NOT claiming Jesus was Christ (8:30)
c) NOT telling about the events on the high mountain, which included transfiguration, God saying Jesus is his Son and Moses & Elijah alive in bodily forms (9:9-10)

Solution 2: Disciples being ignorant or kept in ignorance:
a) NOT aware of the (Christian) meaning of Jesus' future passion (8:33)
b) NOT understanding what "rising from the dead" meant (right after seeing Moses & Elijah!) (9:10)
c) NOT asking about the meaning of (among other things) Jesus' future rising (9:32b)
d) NOT told about the Empty Tomb (16:8)

Solution 3: Disciples being too dumb to notice extraordinary events:
a) NOT "seeing" the miraculous feeding(s) (6:52, 8:4, 17-21)
b) NOT considering "walking on the sea" or/and the following stoppage of the wind as divine miracle(s) (6:52)

Solution 4: Damage control on witnessed failure & objectionable conduct/saying:
a) Jairus' daughter not resurrected (damage control: 5:42).
b) Rejection of Jesus in his hometown and his failure to heal people there (damage control: 6:4, 5b).
c) Near-impossibility for wealthy to enter the Kingdom of God (damage control: 10:27).
d) Disturbance in the temple (damage control: 11:17).
e) Peter saying Jesus cursed at a fig tree which withered later (damage control: 11:22-25).
f) Disciples falling away after Jesus' arrest (damage control: 14:27b).

"Mark" had to contend with eyewitness' testimony which was not favorable to Christian beliefs then and he supplemented to this "lacking" testimony.
Note: in gMark, Jesus never declares to his disciples he is the Son of God.

Cordially, Bernard

to Irish1975,
What is in bold are my additions.

1. In Galatians, Paul refers to a minimally-human-but-certainly-existing Jesus having existed as a human in the recent past: someoneJAMES' brother, and born of a woman under the Law and a descendant of Abraham and crucified.

2. Galatians is found in the same Bible as the Gospels, which tell the story stories about Jesus of Nazareth.

3. Jesus of Nazareth can only be one and the same as the Jesus of Galatians.

Bonus: Paul's historical Jesus: http://historical-jesus.info/7.html

Cordially, Bernard