Biblical Criticism & History Forum - earlywritings.com

Paul the Uncertain wrote: ↑Thu Aug 31, 2023 3:35 pm ...allegory featuring a . . . historical figure, Grahame-Smith's novel Abraham Lincoln, Vampire Hunter which was also made into a film about a decade ago.

There is no earthly reason that the focal character of an allegory cannot be a real person who actually and recently lived.

True, but please accept being labeled as a "Biblicist". The historicity of Lincoln and others are attested by non-biblical sources.

Since there was an actual person behind the Popeye traditions, Popeye existed according to mainstream Biblical historians. No one could reasonably doubt that Popeye was based on a real sailor who liked to get into fights, if they studied history properly.

Since there was an actual person behind Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s stories, Sherlock Holmes really solved crimes in his day.

So too Santa Claus really exists. Who else brings the presents on December 25th, and who else eats the cookies, and drinks the milk left for him?

All biblicists need for someone to exist is for a literary figure to be based on a real historical person. So Jesus existed too!

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—John W. Loftus [Loftus, John (26 July 2021). "My Talk at the GCRR e-Conference on the Historical Jesus". Debunking Christianity.]

Paul the Uncertain wrote: ↑Thu Aug 31, 2023 3:35 pm There is no earthly reason that the focal character of an allegory cannot be a real person who actually and recently lived.

That would seem to depend on whether any particular allegory was based on a real person, how much was based on a real person, and how relevant that basis is to the purpose of the allegory

Allegory is a specific, and (afaics/iiuc) limited genre:

• "a narrative or visual representation in which a character, place, or event can be interpreted to represent a hidden meaning with moral or political significance"

• a story, poem, or picture that can be interpreted to reveal a hidden meaning, typically a moral or political one
  
  a symbol

MrMacSon wrote: ↑Thu Aug 31, 2023 4:48 pm Allegory is a specific, and (afaics/iiuc) limited genre:

Allusions to the Old Testament are usually absorbed into Mark's story in such a manner that the allusions form part of the story stuff. They are so embedded into the story that, if it were not for the marginal notes of scholars and a knowledge of the Old Testament, the reader would not have noticed the allusion!

And is uniquely used in gMark as noted by Vorster. Whereas Matthew and Luke use the Old Testament within a promise-fulfilment scheme, Vorster, following Alfred Suhl 1962, Die Funktion der alttestamentlichen Zitate und Anspielungen im Markusevangelium, argues that Mark's use of the Old Testament is totally different from Matthew and Luke.

One has only to page through a modern Greek edition of the New Testament like the twenty-sixth edition of Aland to notice the Old Testament background of the material in Mark’s Gospel which is referred to in the margin of the text. Right from the very beginning Mark’s story is embedded in Old Testament language and imagery. Apart from quotations from the Pentateuch, Prophets and Writings, which more often resemble the Hebrew text than the LXX, there are also many allusions to Old Testament traditions and material. This happens to such an extent that it can be said that the passion narrative, for example, is told in the language of the Old Testament (see Weber 1975:167). Against the background of psalms of lamentation like 22, 38 and 69 the suffering of the Just is narrated (see Ps. 22:2 → Mk. 15:34; 22:8b → 15:29; 22:19 → 15:24; Ps. 38:12 → 15:40; Ps. 69:22b → 15:36). It is, however, not only in the passion narrative that Mark told the story of Jesus with the aid of Old Testament material.

It is not my purpose to give a survey of current research on the phenomenon of Old Testament usage in Mark. I shall only refer briefly to two studies in which this aspect of Mark’s Gospel was treated and which I find of some interest for the present study.

In 1961 Siegfried Schulz discussed the use of the Old Testament in Mark from the point of view of the origin of the Gospel...

(p. 153)

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--Vorster, Willem S. (1999) [1981]. "The function of the use of the Old Testament in Mark". In Botha, J. Eugene (ed.). Speaking of Jesus: Essays on Biblical Language, Gospel Narrative, and the Historical Jesus. BRILL. ISBN 90-04-10779-7.

If the composition of gMark occurred at the same time as allegorical interpretation of the LXX as popularized by Hellenized Jews like Philo was the norm. Then the flip side of this coin would be to write new scripture with allegory.

A justification for the comparison of the Gospel of Mark with Jewish apocrypha and pseudepigrapha is given by Nathanael Vette,[25] following Devorah Dimant's work "Use and Interpretation of Mikra":[26] that these writings have in common the imitation of the styles and forms of the Old Testament (OT) biblical literature and can be read as if they are attempting to imitate that biblical world. Scripture is not primarily addressed directly in order to be explicitly interpreted in these writings but acts as an underlay that helps shape narrative episodes. Vette also borrows from Dimant the terms to describe these two types of Scripture reference: expositional and compositional. Most scholarship has attended to the expositional use of Scriptures in the Gospel of Mark, seeking to explain how the Gospel can be interpreted through its Scriptural references; but Vette seeks to redress that balance by examining the compositional function of biblical texts in the Gospel.[1] . . . This article incorporates text from a free content work. Licensed under Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0) (license statement/permission). Text taken from How and Why the Gospel of Mark Used Scripture — a review of Writing with Scripture, part 1, Neil Godfrey.

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"Intertextual production of the Gospel of Mark". Wikipedia. Retrieved 1 September 2023.

Greetings, dbz

True, but please accept being labeled as a "Biblicist". The historicity of Lincoln and others are attested by non-biblical sources.

I agree with Loftus that the focal character of an allegory may be fictive, a point already raised in the thread by Price and not in dispute here. There could indeed be borderline cases, where a focal character derives from a real person, but does not accurately represent the circumstances of their life. I gave two examples in my earlier post. Loftus and I agree on that point, too.

Without its context, the topical relevance of the final quoted sentence is unclear. Whether or not the NT Jesus derives from a real man who actually lived is the topic, regardless of whether or not someone is a "biblicist," whatever that word means.

Greetings, MrMacSon

That would seem to depend on whether any particular allegory was based on a real person, how much was based on a real person, and how relevant that basis is to the purpose of the allegory

Those are all worthy concerns. Ultimately, though, the issue presented by the Price exposition is whether definitely identifying a literary work as an allegory warrants classifying its focal character as entirely fictive. I dissent, for the reasons stated in my post.

On a matter arising

Allusions to the Old Testament are usually absorbed into Mark's story in such a manner that the allusions form part of the story stuff. They are so embedded into the story that, if it were not for the marginal notes of scholars and a knowledge of the Old Testament, the reader would not have noticed the allusion!

In creative writing jargon, that's called serving as a prompt. Much of the "Pauline" influence upon GMark also consists of prompting, in my opinion. In a literary work composed for a wide audience, it seems both innocuous and inevitable that some (most?) audience members will never know nor care what prompted Mark to show Jesus sleeping through the storm he eventually stilled, for example. It's a good story point in the New Testament, just as it was a good story point in Jonah, too.

On this I'd point out, based on the definitions I found —

MrMacSon wrote: ↑Thu Aug 31, 2023 4:48 pm
Allegory is a specific, and (afaics/iiuc) limited genre:

• "a narrative or visual representation in which a character, place, or event can be interpreted to represent a hidden meaning with moral or political significance"

• a story, poem, or picture that can be interpreted to reveal a hidden meaning, typically a moral or political one
  
  a symbol

— is that allegory is a singular thing

So, each book of the NT might/would have to viewed as having several if not dozens or even hundreds of allegories.

Midrashim or midrash might be a more appropriate term (??)

Paul the Uncertain wrote: ↑Thu Aug 31, 2023 3:35 pm A difficulty is that this

I'm saying that the Gospel of Mark can be demonstrated to be an entirely made up fictional allegory.

Even if true, doesn't imply this:

The belief that Jesus was a human being BEGAN with the Gospel of Mark. The Gospel of Mark is the writing that initiated the belief that Jesus was a real person. The person who wrote the Gospel of Mark knew that Jesus was not a real person. This writer's Jesus was a consciously invented fictional character.

An especially timely counterexample premiered earlier today in Venice.

https://variety.com/2023/film/global/pa ... 235705117/

The allegorical film El Conde portrays the historical 20th Century Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet (1915-2006) as a fictional character (and one who is impossible to be real within the bounds of procedural naturalism), a 250 year-old vampire. The same mythology has been used to craft more positive allegory featuring a better regarded historical figure, Grahame-Smith's novel Abraham Lincoln, Vampire Hunter which was also made into a film about a decade ago.

There is no earthly reason that the focal character of an allegory cannot be a real person who actually and recently lived.

And the cleansing of the Temple didn't happen as told? Is it your view that that is news to living scholarly historicists?

https://www.patheos.com/blogs/religionp ... ables.html

(Colleague Giuseppe will vouch for Professor McGrath's standing as a Jesus-historicist.)

The case I make is that there is only one single biography of Jesus. Just one. Every single account of this person's life rests entirely on the Gospel of Mark, and nothing else.

How do we know this? How can this be proven? Because every scene in the Gospel of Mark is constructed from literary references that have nothing to do with Jesus. So we can see that each and every scene is a literary invention.

Now yes, it can be that an allegory can be based on a "real person". But in order for us to say that its based on a real person, some aspect of the real person needs to be portrayed. At a point we can say every character is based on a real person. The question is, was the Gospel of Mark written in order to record the life and deeds of a real person? Or was the Gospel of Mark written in order to invent a character to symbolize Pauline teaching. I argue the latter.

But this is the very important part. Every other known Gospel, including non-canonical ones, include many details from the Gospel of Mark that can be demonstrated to be literary inventions. So if we demonstrate that a certain scene is a literary invention, and every other Gospel also includes the scene then what does that tell us? It tells us that the other Gospel writers don't actually know anything about some real Jesus person either.

So if we start with a single narrative, and we prove that all the scenes in that narrative are literary inventions, and that every other narrative is entirely dependent on the first, then where does that leave us? At that point trying to argue that "Jesus could still be real" is just special pleading, like, "Its possible there is a giant purple monster at the bottom of the ocean!"

Now, we add to this the fact that in the 2nd century the idea that Jesus was a real flesh and blood person, as opposed to a spirit that came down from heaven, was not established and had to be "proven". And the "proof" that Jesus was a real person rested ENTIRELY on the Gospels. It rested entirely on a literal reading of the Gospels and the claim that the four now-canonical Gospels were independently written eyewitness accounts!

But now we see that is not the case. In fact every Gospel traces back to a single fictional allegory, in which every scene is invented from literary references. All of the evidence we have indicates that the only people who clearly believe that Jesus was a real person held that belief because of what they read in the Gospels. There is not one single example of anyone affirming a belief that Jesus was a real person based on anything other than reading the Gospels.

It is clear that the "account of Jesus ministry" is not based in any way shape or form on real events. The entire account is completely and 100% made up. We know that it is because we can see how it was written. So if the only story about this person's life that anyone ever knows and talks about is an entirely made up complete and total fiction, then what is the basis for arguing that the fiction was "inspired by real events"? If there were some real Jesus who actually inspired this movement, then why is it that no one else every wrote anything about the real Jesus? Why is the only account of Jesus we have the entirely fictional one? Where are the alternative accounts of his ministry? There are none.

The only reason anyone today thinks he was a real person is because of a set of flawed arguments made by Roman theologians in the 2nd-4th centuries, who misunderstood the provenance of the stories they were reading. That's literally it.

I am one of the (many?) readers of gMark who do not consider it an allegory.

StephenGoranson wrote: ↑Fri Sep 01, 2023 4:39 am I am one of the (many?) readers of gMark who do not consider it an allegory.

That's fine, but you are provably wrong. There are people who still claim the earth is flat too...

You may have proven it to your satisfaction. Might that possibly be a low bar?

Paul the Uncertain wrote: ↑Fri Sep 01, 2023 1:14 am In creative writing jargon, that's called serving as a prompt. Much of the "Pauline" influence upon GMark also consists of prompting, in my opinion. In a literary work composed for a wide audience, it seems both innocuous and inevitable that some (most?) audience members will never know nor care what prompted Mark to show Jesus sleeping through the storm he eventually stilled, for example. It's a good story point in the New Testament, just as it was a good story point in Jonah, too.

The stilling of the storm scene is based on Psalm 107, not Jonah. The scene is literally constructed by rearranging verses of the psalm.

Now, this may not matter to a general audience, but if anyone wants to actually understand the basis of the narrative then they need to understand this. And when people start claiming that the story came from "oral traditions" or that it's a record of real events, then it has to be addressed.

Why is Jesus asleep? Because the writer needs his characters to "cry out to the Lord in their distress" in order to complete his reference to Psalm 107. If Jesus is standing right next to them then that doesn't make sense. He has to be unaware of the circumstances somehow, aloof and not engaged, so that his disciples will need to seek him out. If he is awake and among them they he should already be dealing with the storm.

The whole scene is concocted fiction, invented by the writer. It's a contrived scene. Like every single scene, one after the next, in GMark.

And in order to actually understand the narrative you have to read Psalm 107. This is why it is most likely the case that GMark was written for an audience of initiates in a mystery religion. It seems likely that all of the symbolism in Mark wasn't intended just to go over the heads of his audience, but that the audience would understand it. But you can't really just understand it on your own. It requires significant deciphering, which again, along with many aspects of the Pauline letters themselves, points to a mystery cult.

Quite honestly, what I suspect, given the nature of the evidence of the early understanding of Christian literature, is that there was a Pauline mystery cult in Ephesus. The Pauline letter collection was assembled by this mystery cult and the introductory narrative was appended to the beginning of the collection. Like writings of Orphic mystery cults and those of the Sibyl, these writings were intended to remain only in private and secret collections. But someone leaked the collection and then this story along with the Pauline letters were left to open interpretation by non-initiates who weren't instructed on the material and just took it at face value.

That, of course, will never be provable, but that's what I think is the most likely explanation for how this material originated and became public. And it explains why the real origin of the work was never known.