Disagreement about the whole idea of "tradition"

[MrMacSon]

xxx

[Peter Kirby]

There are no "oral traditions", there are no "accounts", there are no "memories"

You're gonna hate it:

viewtopic.php?t=12203

But you haven't disproved it.

[rgprice]

There are no "oral traditions", there are no "accounts", there are no "memories"

You're gonna hate it:

viewtopic.php?t=12203

But you haven't disproved it.

Meh. Even if one assumes that these narratives refer to real people who were witnesses to the real Crucifixion, that still does nothing to corroborate the Gospel accounts. We never hear from those supposed witnesses.

Its like if in a criminal trial someone says that Joe was there and he was a witness to the crime. But if Joe never testifies then whether Joe was actually a witness to the crime or not is irrelevant.

Unless of course you believe John 21...

[Peter Kirby]

There are no "oral traditions", there are no "accounts", there are no "memories"

You're gonna hate it:

viewtopic.php?t=12203

But you haven't disproved it.

Meh. Even if one assumes that these narratives refer to real people who were witnesses to the real Crucifixion, that still does nothing to corroborate the Gospel accounts. We never hear from those supposed witnesses.

Awesome. So now the main problem is that the account is second hand and the author isn't the same person as the eyewitness. I can live with that.

[Peter Kirby]

It's not exactly rare that some ancient historical events don't receive any first hand eyewitness accounts. There's plenty of ancient history where the second hand accounts can't be "corroborated."

[rgprice]

Awesome. So now the main problem is that the account is second hand and the author isn't the same person as the eyewitness. I can live with that.

No. If I am arrested for breaking and entering for stealing from a house, and I say, "I didn't do it. I swear, I have a witness who knows that I was not at that house at that time. His name is Joe, and he knows I wasn't there. What I was doing was I was at the movies watching a movie with Joe, and I saw the movie Star Wars and I ate some Gummy Bears, etc." But the policy can't find Joe and they never hear from Joe and Joe is never called as a witness in the trial, then you cannot say that, "We have an account of what the defendant was doing at the time of the break in."

What I say I was doing has no merit unless it can actually be corroborated by Joe. Me just claiming that I was with Joe is not the same thing as actually proving I was with Joe.

Now in this case, if I say that I was with Joe and he can corroborate my story, but my claim is that I was watching Star Wars at X movie theater and I ate Gummy Bears, but then the police look into it and it turns out that Star Wars was not playing at that theater at that time and that the theater doesn't even sell Gummy Bears, then of course there are major reasons not to believe my account and not to even believe that there was any such Joe who was a witness to me not being at the house.

In the case of the Gospel we have just this. We have dozens upon dozens of points that can be reasonably proven to be false. And we have speculation about a few things that "could be true". Now, why might we think that these things which "could be true" are in fact true, given that for everything that we can more reasonably verify, all of those things are shown to be false?

[Peter Kirby]

I don't care about the judicial analogies. We're here for what you're calling "speculation." Stripped bare, a large part of history is "speculation." What we think makes the most sense based on the available information.

[Peter Kirby]

Think that the matter cannot be resolved definitively but have an opinion based on a preponderance of evidence?

That is sound.

Popping off saying you have proven it?

Not sound, but most of everything isn't proven here.

[Peter Kirby]

For some examples, let's point out some of your statements just in this thread that are not proven, to say the least.

There was no tradition.

Not proven.

There isn't a single dammed tradition in any of them.

Worded more strongly but still not proven.

The Pauline corpus is the oldest set of ideas.

Not proven.

1) Pauline letters ...

And everything is built from #1.

Not proven.

The only "real" writings in the bunch are the letters. Everything after the letters is fabricated invention based on the letters with creative writing to flesh it all out.

Not proven.

The original Gospel narrative ...
When everyone had failed him and thus failed to deliver his message to humanity, he revealed himself to one who had not previously known him - Paul, who became the Apostle that told the world about him.

It's not proven that this is part of the original Gospel narrative.

The reason for the "Messianic Secret" is to frame the NEW CLAIM that Jesus was "the Messiah" as something that was not understood and/or not passed on by those the "original disciples", who all end up abandoning Jesus and not actually passing on his teachings.

Not proven.

[Peter Kirby]

The best explanation for this is that there was essentially no religion of Jesus worship prior to the writing of the Gospels.

Not proven.

The Pauline letters indicate there was, but whatever that was must have been tiny and insignificant.

Argued against by yourself one sentence later, if a tiny and insignificant group is still "essentially" something.