Why is it critical that 400 or 500 years before Jesus was born the Jews only recognised the Ten Commandments came from God? Do you think that the gospels were written then?
What is 'critical' about any of this? Are we saving anyone's life? Are we providing them with food or shelter? The point of hanging out here for me has always been to learn new things, see what other people are thinking about etc. I also like fair-minded criticism of ideas I have come up with. But the idea that you bring Michael is that we already know all the basic facts of Christianity isn't just a matter of trimming the edges a little. I don't agree with that assessment and there are many at this forum who share a more or less similar world-view or view of history.
I don't mean to get into a long discussion of 'what I believe' to be true but it seems that you are hell bent on limiting discussion IN MY THREAD to things or ways that you would approach the problem of 'how much of the gospel is actual history.' Your view is - right out of the starting gate - that there was a man named Jesus there were apostles they had a historical impact on the world and the evangelists were just recording what that impact was. I don't share that view for a number of reasons which I think will only distract from my original line of reasoning (a line of reasoning that you seem hellbent on derailing for petty personal reasons).
Getting back to this latest derail attempt. Of course it matters if ISRAELITES (Jews were just a portion of those who adhered to the ten commandments) originally held the Pentateuch to be a man-made creation and the ten commandments a heavenly Torah WHEN THIS IS THE FUCKING POINT OF MATTHEW 19. It's what Jesus is saying when he says 'Moses told you something different from God, Moses's commandments are not divine commandments.'
How can you possibly not see that Jesus demonstrating himself to be aligned with a particular historical understanding within Judaism if ... we are all allegedly figuring out the origins of Christianity and biblical texts like the gospel here at forum? How can that not be fucking interesting, relevant, important, profound, worthy of discussing at the forum? I am at a complete loss for words. That might not be your approach to help decide whether or not the gospel is actual history, but I think it is very significant and relevant to the discussion for reasons already given time and time again (despite your endless derail attempts).
“Finally, from so little sleeping and so much reading, his brain dried up and he went completely out of his mind.”
― Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra, Don Quixote
Even using the Talmud it is clear that Rabbinic Judaism discussed how to keep more than just the Ten Commandments.
What are you fucking stupid or something? Yes the Talmud had a particular view of God, religion and piety but they are reporting on things going on in Judaism related to their particular view of God, religion and piety. By the same approach the police fight crime but in the process of fighting crime they encounter criminals and criminal activity. The police want people to uphold the law but a police blotter will be all about people not upholding the law. Do you suppose that if you studied a police report it would be filled with examples of law-abiding behavior. 'Joey Smith obeyed the traffic signal at Lexington and 4th. Betty Wilson signaled before making a right turn.' No, the upholders of a particular brand of orthodoxy necessarily end up proving a lot of information about heretics. You are quickly distinguishing yourself as among the least intelligent and insightful people at the forum.
“Finally, from so little sleeping and so much reading, his brain dried up and he went completely out of his mind.”
― Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra, Don Quixote
Please provide the quote [regarding a high level of illiteracy in antiquity] with its reference and if you can an internet link to it?
I am not going to provide a fucking reference for something that is common knowledge to first year students of antiquity. If you think that most people in antiquity could read and write you have demonstrated you are even dumber than John outhouse.
“Finally, from so little sleeping and so much reading, his brain dried up and he went completely out of his mind.”
― Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra, Don Quixote
“Finally, from so little sleeping and so much reading, his brain dried up and he went completely out of his mind.”
― Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra, Don Quixote
Would the Talmud, assuming you could provide the quote and the reference and an internet link, be reliable when discussing the Samaritans?
Maybe not in every matter but as to whether or not there were (many) illiterate Samaritans, why not? They reference illiterate Jews using the same terminology.
“Finally, from so little sleeping and so much reading, his brain dried up and he went completely out of his mind.”
― Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra, Don Quixote
Do you really think the writer of John’s gospel is writing history?
How can you accept this as historical but reject everything else in the gospels?
I am not accepting the gospel reference. My point is to say that even fiction tries to reflect 'reality.' That's how fiction 'works.' You create another world to make a statement about this world. If the gospel described Jesus mingling with purple aliens in Jerusalem it wouldn't have been a widely accepted document.
“Finally, from so little sleeping and so much reading, his brain dried up and he went completely out of his mind.”
― Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra, Don Quixote
And of course - to further the conversation - the best argument against the gospel containing a lot of history is that believers wouldn't have been so willing to change the facts (through forgery, counterfeiting, alteration and movement of passages) if there were an original set of facts that people knew to be real and inviolable. Think about Papias's statement and Luke's prologue. How could everyone have come up with completely different ordered narratives if there was an underlying set of facts? Compare the order of events in the Epistle to the Apostles with any known gospel and you will see what I mean.
And eventually it will be recognized that the later editing of the gospel was to make appear MORE historical and less symbolic/allegorical - in short mystical. The fact that Clement thinks that Jesus had exactly a year long ministry. Why a year long? Clement and Irenaeus tell us - to conform with Isaiah 61. Why was this 360 day thing explicit in Clement's community but is only vaguely referenced in our text? Because the late second century gospels were developed to add to the appearance of historicity and diminish the original 'mystical character' of the earlier gospel.
It is no small wonder that people read Mark and are struck by its 'historical' character (cf. Adela Y Collins). Whatever happened to the mystical text of Mark? Bye, bye mystical Mark.
“Finally, from so little sleeping and so much reading, his brain dried up and he went completely out of his mind.”
― Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra, Don Quixote
I wonder why you keep raising this issue if it is not relevant to the case you might wish to try to present.
Because I am interested in engaging intelligent people. The fact that I keep getting stuck talking to you TedM and John outhouse is an unfortunate consequence of the technology. There are people who read this forum but don't participate directly in the discussion but PM people if they have something interesting to say. I guess you haven't been getting many PMs here ...
I can commiserate with our Secret friend in his disappointment with those who engage him, but the nature of his outbursts seems to beg for just such people to respond in just the way they do. They feed off each other.
Nevertheless it is Secret's very cheap shot to tell them they are cut out of the loop, so to speak, that no one bothers to engage them personally. Yet though Secret rarely if ever criticizes me (because he sees a kindred wild spirit here, I guess), I will admit that if there is such a plot, I'm not in on the conspiracy, apparently, Yes, I have on rare occasion received a PM (personal message), but largely from subsequently banned individual(s) for whom I had no respect in the first place. No, I have never sent anyone a PM--if I had anything worth saying, I want everyone to see it.
I don't go out of my way to attack people. But if someone raises a stupid objection I will say so. The more I think about the more I settle on the idea - what if mystic Mark was first. This would explain Papias' statement that Mark had the wrong order and the justification for altering the order - the order (down to the 360 days) was overtly symbolic. The changed order, the altered arrangement shed the appearance of symbolism/made the text seem historical by coarseming it. I bet the original Mark displayed a higher level of writing too.
In the original every story, every stone if you will was embedded in a symbolic mosaic. Each story COULD be taken as part of a historical narrative. But the initiated knew by means of an oral tradition (Adv Harr 3.1) that it was something else.
No one in the historicist/mythicist debate has considered the implication of Secret Mark being proto-Mark and its mystical nature opening the door to many historicist revisions. A historical Mark (perhaps canonical Mark) AFTER or in reaction against an original mystic Mark edited by someone in a later period to reinforce a historical Jesus
Also Celsus's objection that much of the gospel was stolen from Plato and the Persian mysteries this precludes the possibility that Jesus was a Galilean peasant. He must have implied the evangelist stole from Plato not the idiotes
“Finally, from so little sleeping and so much reading, his brain dried up and he went completely out of his mind.”
― Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra, Don Quixote
Secret Alias wrote: you are even dumber than John outhouse.
Why thank you.
But I don't think his books are selling for 3 cents.
If mine were, or his were, we would probably stop writing and go back to school.
The guy is a welcome addition here providing reason and logic.
Mark edited by someone in a later period to reinforce a historical Jesus
Unsubstantiated.
No one needed to rhetorically build historicity, as no one we know about was even arguing that he wasn't. This is an illusion you hold because your version does not fly without wearing a tinfoil hat AND throwing salt over your shoulder.
You have no room to talk about intellect or stupidity. Your not a professor or teacher or scholar. Your a failed author on his last desperate bid to get others to follow the same illogical garbage you proselytize.
