Biblical Criticism & History Forum - earlywritings.com

outhouse wrote:

cienfuegos wrote:We in fact have no (or at least very little and disputed) evidence of this oral tradition in the earliest Christian writings

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Does not apply. There is no evidence for this other then an illiterate people who used oral traditions to communicate. Its a given.

Your example was of a semi-illiterate people who use an authoritative text, presumably read to them by priests. If you are proposing that these people were entirely illiterate, then you have a problem of how people who passed it more than 1 or 2 degrees of separation from the events would have received it.

So let's say there are all these collective memories about Jesus floating around: whose memories are those that are basically winning the battle of survival of the fittest?


Popularity won the day. Not the fittest.

Popularity has nothing to do with truth or fact.

outhouse wrote: "When" is the question, not whose.

What you are suggesting is an oral tradition that is very different than the example you compare it to:

I am not comparing it to anything. I am showing the capabilities of oral traditions. Not comparing traditions.

But your example only shows that "illiterate" (and were they really) people were able to memorize an authoritative text. This doesn't apply to the case of illiterate Christians with no authoritative text. You have a problem of transmission and oral tradition is not a magic bullet.

outhouse wrote:

Why would anyone bother remembering this one obscure baptism among all the hundreds?

People talked about him at Passover, "did you hear he was from" "he was baptized by John" "I heard he said this" and so on. No mystery here.

Their newspaper was oral traditions.

Why would they? Why would they even notice?

outhouse wrote:

Still by the 70s or 80s when Mark wrote the Gospels, it was important for Jesus to be baptized by John?

Not important, a detail about the man they followed that was important to them. His earthly history was important, even if still embarrassing that John baptized him.

There is no reason to list such a detail for the Hellenistic movement. There was no reason to hold a peasant Galilean teacher as the one, but they did, because those are the cards they were handed.

They were compelled to report on facts of his life even if embarrassing? Why not report his paternal heritage then?

outhouse wrote: By that time, Jesus was the pre-existent co-creator of the world

Mistake.


The movement was wide and diverse and not everyone thought this. His divinity early on by Mark was not equal with god. His divinity was compared to the living Emperors divinity.


Mythology grows, it evolves with time.

I only takes some Christians to prove my point. Your sequence of events is backwards because we find the mythology in our earliest writings.

outhouse wrote:

we find exactly what we would expect if there were no oral tradition at the time of Paul and that Mark just made up his Gospel.

Not what we find.


We see evidence of a compilation of multiple source, and one source was oral traditions early on.

Where is your evidence of an oral tradition?

outhouse wrote: If an event was witnessed, your saying only written traditions in an oral culture could pass on history, how much sense does that make?

I said that your example of oral tradition was not what you are describing of the Christian movement. You also need to deal with the fact that even if there are oral traditions, they need not be based on historical events at all. Even if 'oral tradition' exists, you haven't demonstrated that the stories stemmed from an actual character. Native Americans in the southwest US had an oral tradition of Old Coyote tales. There's nothing to suggest that Old Coyote was based on a real character.

outhouse wrote: They were oral people, of course there were oral traditions. This movement did not start from a published book that was passed on. No book was needed for oral traditions to exist.

You missed my point.

cienfuegos wrote:Where is your evidence of an oral tradition?


.

Illiterate people did not talk?

outhouse wrote:

cienfuegos wrote:Where is your evidence of an oral tradition?


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Illiterate people did not talk?

Ok.

So, let's try this: How did the author of the Gospel of Mark know that Jesus was baptized by John? Who was his source? Who was the source of that source? If we go back to the beginning, who was the original witness who passed along this historical fact, one of the facts considered most secure by historicists. Where did that fact come from? If Jesus was baptized by John, who witnessed it and passed on that information?

^Is it really that much of stretch to think that Jesus may well have been baptised by John? John is attested to in Josephus as a popular Jewish baptising cult leader. Baptism is taught and alluded to in Paul, our earliest source for the Christian movement. The gospels seem to be skirting desperately around the questions of why it was that if Jesus was so special he would even need to be baptised, and whether or not John fulfilled the prophecy of Elijah's return. Acts states that there were early Christian disciples, seemingly unfamiliar with Paul, who only knew of the baptism of John as the initiation ritual. No Christian or non-Christian source ever disputes a relationship between Jesus and John. They only dispute the extent and interpretation of their relationship. Simplest explanation? Jesus was probably baptised by John, and this was simply common knowledge. Such a deduction explains so much - it explains how it was John made it into the gospel traditions without having to appeal to conspiracy, and how it was baptism became a key ritual in early Christian communities. What's a better alternative to explain why John shows up at all in early Christian sources?

toejam wrote:^Is it really that much of stretch to think that Jesus may well have been baptised by John? John is attested to in Josephus as a popular Jewish baptising cult leader. Baptism is taught and alluded to in Paul, our earliest source for the Christian movement. The gospels seem to be skirting desperately around the questions of why it was that if Jesus was so special he would even need to be baptised, and whether or not John fulfilled the prophecy of Elijah's return. Acts states that there were early Christian disciples, seemingly unfamiliar with Paul, who only knew of the baptism of John as the initiation ritual. No Christian or non-Christian source ever disputes a relationship between Jesus and John. They only dispute the extent and interpretation of their relationship. Simplest explanation? Jesus was probably baptised by John, and this was simply common knowledge. Such a deduction explains so much - it explains how it was John made it into the gospel traditions without having to appeal to conspiracy, and how it was baptism became a key ritual in early Christian communities. What's a better alternative to explain why John shows up at all in early Christian sources?

You are missing the point. I am not asking whether or not it was plausible. I am not even arguing that Jesus was not baptized by John. Our question here is concerning oral tradition and how it originates and is transmitted. Does the existence of an oral tradition imply that the stories contained in that tradition stem from actual events?

My question is this: How did the author of the Gospel of Mark know that Jesus was baptized by John?

How was this information transmitted from the event (ordinary, unknown Jesus standing amongst the multitudes in the Jordan getting dipped in water by the famous John) to the written word? Who told Mark? Who told the person who told Mark? And here's the problem: In our earliest Gospel there is 1) no evidence of embarrassment (thus your assumption was wrong from the start) and 2) Jesus did not yet have a following.

Review the evidence:

Mark 1:4:
d so John the Baptist appeared in the wilderness, preaching a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins. 5 The whole Judean countryside and all the people of Jerusalem went out to him.

Mark 1:9:
At that time Jesus came from Nazareth in Galilee and was baptized by John in the Jordan.
Mark 1:14
After John was put in prison, Jesus went into Galilee, proclaiming the good news of God.
Mark 1:16
16 As Jesus walked beside the Sea of Galilee, he saw Simon and his brother Andrew casting a net into the lake, for they were fishermen. 17 “Come, follow me,” Jesus said, “and I will send you out to fish for people.” 18 At once they left their nets and followed him.

So here we go:
1. Multitudes of people flock to the Jordan to be baptized by John.
2. Among those multitudes is the unknown, obscure tekton from Nazareth, named Jesus (possibly an illegitimate son of unknown Jewish woman)
3. Jesus is baptized (nothing in Mark points to embarrassment here, that element is only introduced after Mark)
4. Jesus begins preaching after John is arrested.
5. Jesus calls disciples.

So again, toejam (you can help on this): Who told Mark that John had baptized Jesus? Who was present to observe the fact that John baptized Jesus? Maybe Jesus made it up. Maybe the new guy on the block, in order to increase his influence, only claimed to have been baptized by the famous John the Baptist? Who would know? It's a known phenomenon that more people will claim to have attended a famous event than actually did. I could say I went to Burning Man 2011 and who would be able to say I didn't? So this is one of the elements that scholars often claim is a true fact about Jesus: he was baptized by John. I am asking directly: How does Mark know that Jesus was baptized by John?

EDIT: Burning man is a bad example. Let me use this: Pope John Paul II came to Des Moines in the 1980s. I attended and even received communion from him. Prove that I did not.

Conservative scholars will say that the writing's veracity rests on oral testimony of the apostles and their successors. For something like this event, they might say that Jesus told his disciples about his baptism. Or that disciples of JtB told Jesus' disciples.

Then they'll bring up other ancient writings and say stuff like "Are you going to deny that Aristotle's reports about Socrates are reliable? After all, Ari did not know Socrates and presumably relied on the testimony of Plato and/or others."

Conservative Christians like to claim that their religion is based on a more secure historical footing than any other religion. But to the extent that assumptions like the above lie at the root of their historical investigation, the result is not far from a bald faith commitment, in my opinion.

I think the best argument that conservatives have is the date of Acts argument. I think perhaps steve43 has made that argument here? I.e. that because the martyrdoms of Peter and Paul are not recorded in Acts, and it is implausible that the author would have bypassed the chance to record their glorious martyrdoms had he known of them, Acts must have been written before c. 64.

I have my reasons for not being persuaded by this argument, but, Fermat style, I do not state them here.

Anyway, in the spirit of your OP, I am also not persuaded that the conservative approach is based on sound method of "doing history."

ficino wrote:Conservative scholars will say that the writing's veracity rests on oral testimony of the apostles and their successors. For something like this event, they might say that Jesus told his disciples about his baptism. Or that disciples of JtB told Jesus' disciples.

Then they'll bring up other ancient writings and say stuff like "Are you going to deny that Aristotle's reports about Socrates are reliable? After all, Ari did not know Socrates and presumably relied on the testimony of Plato and/or others."

Conservative Christians like to claim that their religion is based on a more secure historical footing than any other religion. But to the extent that assumptions like the above lie at the root of their historical investigation, the result is not far from a bald faith commitment, in my opinion.

I think the best argument that conservatives have is the date of Acts argument. I think perhaps steve43 has made that argument here? I.e. that because the martyrdoms of Peter and Paul are not recorded in Acts, and it is implausible that the author would have bypassed the chance to record their glorious martyrdoms had he known of them, Acts must have been written before c. 64.

I have my reasons for not being persuaded by this argument, but, Fermat style, I do not state them here.

Anyway, in the spirit of your OP, I am also not persuaded that the conservative approach is based on sound method of "doing history."

I agree with what you say here. I would like defenders of "oral tradition" to examine the assumptions that they hold. Oral tradition is a magic bullet they pull out as a "source" of facts. They need to have a theory to defend the assertion that oral tradition contains factual or authentic material. So far, I don't see it. outhouse pointed to a model of oral tradition that does not apply, one that is often appealed to by apologists.

cienfuegos wrote:... I would like defenders of "oral tradition" to examine the assumptions that they hold. Oral tradition is a magic bullet they pull out as a "source" of facts. They need to have a theory to defend the assertion that oral tradition contains factual or authentic material. So far, I don't see it. outhouse pointed to a model of oral tradition that does not apply, one that is often appealed to by apologists.

"Oral tradition" seems to be a kind of pliable clay from which are fashioned all sorts of convenient theories that cannot be proved or disproved.

Back a while ago on the Crosstalk2 (XTalk) discussion list, Ed Tyler had pointed out an annotated bibliography he and others had developed tracing academic study of oral tradition. The list had been updated a couple of times. I have secured electronic copies of three of the continuations, and there are likely more.

If there is any interest, I'd be glad to post the latter compilation. I think it would be enlightening to see how academics deal with both non-Christian and Christian examples of oral traditions. There are commonalities, but notable differences.

DCH

Edit

The nascent christ cult had a problem. Their detractors were charging that their celestial christ demi-deity was 'out of touch' with the human condition, and as a far removed and immaterial god, was without experience in human suffering.
The cult response was to draw on Scripture and Josephus (as well as other less known texts) and bring their christ down to earth, literarily imbuing him with a flesh and blood human body, bestowing on 'him' a Scripture derived name, and an entirely fabricated supra-human "history".

Josephus's History provided the christ cult's religious fabricators with the long deceased John the Baptist as that desperately needed historical 'hook', becoming (the imagined) claimed forerunner and a human 'companion' to their misappropriated mythical incarnated demi-god 'Suffering Servant' story-book character.

The 'christ Jesus' myth found in the pages of the NT is pure religious literary fabrication from its incarnation 'birth' to his equally mythical suffering, death, and zombie resurrection. Religious fable through and through from beginning to end. Not history, not a person.
Dig as long and deep as you will, all that will ever turn up will be nothing but contrived and invented religious horse crap.



Sheshbazzar

It is strange - it seems studies into Islam are actually going further than in xianity

This book is an effort at the “quest for the historical Muhammad” that uses methods and perspectives borrowed from biblical and early Christian studies to investigate the beginnings of Islam. It takes its main focus on divergent traditions about the timing of Muhammad’s death in the historical sources for the early Islamic period.

The traditional Islamic biographies of Muhammad, which were first written more than a century after his death, relate Muhammad’s death in 632 at Medina. Nevertheless, an alternative tradition survives in earlier and more numerous Jewish, Christian, Samaritan, and even Islamic sources, in which Muhammad was still alive when his followers entered Palestine in 634-35. Although this discrepancy in the source materials has been known for several decades, until now, it had never been investigated.

The purpose of this study, however, is not to determine when Muhammad really died. Rather, these rival memories of the end of Muhammad’s life afford a valuable opening through which to explore the nature of earliest Islam more broadly.

The tradition of Muhammad’s leadership of the campaign in Palestine seems to be earlier than the account of his death in Medina. The question then is what developments within early Islam could explain such a transformation in the early Islamic memory of the conclusion to Muhammad’s life. This study argues that the basis for such “re-remembering” of Muhammad’s death lies in the rapidly changing nature of the new religious movement that he founded. Evidence suggests earliest Islam to have been driven largely by belief that the end of the world had drawn very near: Muhammad and his followers seem to have expected this event even within their lifetimes. The final judgment of “the Hour” was anticipated, it would appear, in Jerusalem, as it largely still is today in the Islamic tradition.

http://rorotoko.com/interview/20120424_ ... gin_islam/

Leave aside the question of a real Jesus or not, where is the questioning of the received history of xianity?