Biblical Criticism & History Forum - earlywritings.com

Bernard Muller wrote: Despite the disagreement between scholars (which is the rule in the scholarly world!), I think we can date gMark very precisely: http://historical-jesus.info/41.html

Mk 13:2 "And Jesus answered and said to him, "Do you see these great buildings [in Jerusalem]? Not one stone shall be left upon another, that shall not be thrown down."

Josephus' Wars, VII, I, 1: "Caesar [Titus, in 70] gave orders that they should now demolish the entire city and temple...

http://historical-jesus.info/41.html

Even if Mark 13:2 is based on events in 70 AD/CE it doesn't mean that passsage, or most or all of Mark, was written then.

The parable of the tenants:
Mk 12:1-9 "He then began to speak to them in parables: "A man planted a vineyard. He put a wall around it,
[the walls of Jerusalem and/or its temple]
` dug a pit for the wine press and built a watchtower.

[the Antonia tower (a tall fortress occupied by the Roman garrison) above the temple. Sometimes referred in Josephus' Wars as just "the tower". The imagery is borrowed from Isaiah 5:2-3 (but no wall here!):

• "He [God] dug it up and cleared out its stones, And planted it with the choicest vine. He built a tower in its midst, And also made a wine press in it; So He expected it to bring forth good grapes, But it brought forth wild grapes And now, O inhabitants of Jerusalem and men of Judah, Judge, please, between Me and My vineyard."]

Yes, many passages in the NT are repetitions of or versions of passages in the OT.

MrMacSon wrote:1. The snippets of a human & earthy Jesus in the Pauline epistles are overshadowed by Galatians 1:11-12


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It is in no way overshadowed by that passage.

It shows a lack of understanding of the rhetorical prose used by Paul and community who's job was to build their own authority by demonstrating he/they were a real apostle, like the apostolic communities they were competing theology and laws with.

The job here when competing with apostolic authority is that you need to show that you had the real information from the direct source, which was a heavenly jesus in context.

That has nothing to do with the previous earthly jesus who died on the cross before going to heaven.


This is the kind of weak rhetoric that keeps mythicism stereotyped.

MrMacSon wrote: Even if Mark 13:2 is based on events in 70 AD/CE it doesn't mean that passsage, or most or all of Mark, was written then.


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That's right much antecedes the compilation date, less the multiple endings thought to be the beginning of the second century.

to MrMacSon,

1. The snippets of a human & earthy Jesus in the Pauline epistles are overshadowed by Galatians 1:11-12

What? Paul said he got his gospel from above, that is Jesus then allegedly in heaven, and not from man.
What does that have to do with Jesus never having been an earthly human?
And why don't you quote, from the same epistle, 1:19, 3:16 & 4:4?

Even if Mark 13:2 is based on events in 70 AD/CE it doesn't mean that passage, or most or all of Mark, was written then.

Yes, if I would have written only what you quoted, you would be right. But you chose not to read everything or ignore what I took great pain to explain (with a lot of evidence) why the gospel had to be completed soon after the fall of Jerusalem. So either read again, this time everything, or be honest by not ignoring important points: http://historical-jesus.info/41.html

Yes, many passages in the NT are repetitions of or versions of passages in the OT.

This is a parable of the tenants, certainly not told by Jesus, which has a few details pointing to God, Jerusalem, the priests, the Son, his killing and the disposal of his corpse, plus one small OT parallel.

Cordially, Bernard

Bernard Muller wrote:to MrMacSon,

1. The snippets of a human & earthy Jesus in the Pauline epistles are overshadowed by Galatians 1:11-12

What? Paul said he got his gospel from above, that is Jesus then allegedly in heaven, and not from man.

So Paul made it up.

What does that have to do with Jesus never having been an earthly human?
And why don't you quote, from the same epistle, 1:19, 3:16 & 4:4?

What do 3:16 & 4:4 have to do with Jesus having been an 'earthy human'?

Bernard Muller wrote:

Even if Mark 13:2 is based on events in 70 AD/CE it doesn't mean that passage, or most or all of Mark, was written then.

Yes, if I would have written only what you quoted, you would be right. But you chose not to read everything or ignore what I took great pain to explain (with a lot of evidence) why the gospel had to be completed soon after the fall of Jerusalem. So either read again, this time everything, or be honest by not ignoring important points: http://historical-jesus.info/41.html

Bernard, I cannot read your web-pages as logical arguments. It'd be easier if you post your arguments succinctly here.

Bernard Muller wrote:to Ben,

A case can definitely be made for Paul, at least with respect to the extant and generally acknowledged epistles. He names names, after all, and he appears to be both a contemporary (or near contemporary) of the events in question and an eyewitness to several figures from the Jerusalem church.

But do you think that there is nothing in the Pauline epistles which refers to a human & earthy Jesus? And if you acknowledge there are items acknowledging a human Jesus, are they interpolations? Or maybe you doubt the existence of Paul and his authorship of most parts of his seven deemed authentic epistles?

I am not sure why you are asking these questions. Even if I respond, for example, that I do indeed see Paul as referring to a human and earthly Jesus, and that those passages that refer to a human and earthly Jesus are not (all) interpolations, and that Paul wrote pretty much all that we have of the seven epistles commonly deemed authentic, I can still hold that Paul does not attest to any eyewitness testimony to Jesus. (I can even still hold that the Jesus known to Paul did not really exist; this is basically the viewpoint of mythicists such as Wells and Ellegård. Believing in a human and earthly figure does not magically make that human and earthly figure exist.) But of course not all the references to an earthly, human Jesus are created equal, so to speak. Paul saying that Jesus was of the seed of David, for example, does not carry any claim of eyewitness testimony, even though it definitely implies that Paul believed in an earthly and human Jesus; indeed, all it may witness to is theological necessity. But Paul saying that he has met the brother of Jesus, if indeed that is what "brother of the Lord" means... that is a datum to be reckoned with; that implies a direct eyewitness link (James to Paul). The "human and earthly" part really has nothing to do with the "derived from eyewitness testimony" part.

I am not sure why the question is worded this way. What is the context? In what way did I ever give you the impression that Howell, Prevenier, Gottschalk, and Garraghan had anything at all to do with my evaluations of the texts of Luke and Marcion?

If you apply what you quoted from these scholars, what prevent you (from these quotes) to think gLuke came before gMarcion? I think three witnesses of gMarcion, writing in their name, should be enough to dissuade you to think otherwise.

We have several witnesses to a text known as the Marcionite gospel, and I think you have seen that I take pretty seriously their testimony to the contents of that text. But what witnesses do we have to the origin of that text vis-à-vis the gospel of Luke? They are too late to witness to that, and I have found no evidence that they are basing their conclusion (that Marcion mutilated Luke) on anything other than the texts themselves and their own assumptions.

Or maybe I am mistaking the point you are driving at here.

Ben.

to MrMacSon,

So Paul made it up.

Yes for the most part, about his gospel, with a lot of influence from the author of 'Hebrews'.

What do 3:16 & 4:4 have to do with Jesus having been an 'earthy human'?

As I explained on my website Christ is said to be from the seed of Abraham. According to Paul, human Jews are also from the seed of Abraham, and Paul even said he is himself from the seed of Abraham.
Also, Paul said the allegedly pre-existent Jesus became from a woman, as a Jew.

Bernard, I cannot read your web-pages as logical arguments. It'd be easier if you post your arguments succinctly here.

Of course, knowing you, it's no surprise you can't see any logical arguments. I gave my best shot on this blog post (#41) and I will not spend anymore time on that, except if you have some specific questions on what I wrote in it.
Anyway my main argument is as follows: "Mark" had Jesus predicting the fall of Jerusalem, but also soon afterward the second coming, resurrections, raptures, etc. My conclusion is gMark was written after the fall of Jerusalem (which happened) but before the expected soon to come second coming (which did not happen).
http://historical-jesus.info/41.html

Cordially, Bernard

to Ben,

I am not sure why you are asking these questions. Even if I respond, for example, that I do indeed see Paul as referring to a human and earthly Jesus, and that those passages that refer to a human and earthly Jesus are not (all) interpolations, and that Paul wrote pretty much all that we have of the seven epistles commonly deemed authentic, I can still hold that Paul does not attest to any eyewitness testimony to Jesus.

Why attest to any eyewitness testimony to Jesus if it was well known that Jesus was a human who got crucified on earth (http://historical-jesus.info/19.html)? In that case why would we expect Paul to say: there are many eyewitnesses who can testify that Jesus existed on earth. Paul did not have to deal with Jesus mythicists and had no reason to "prove" against many_centuries_later mythicists that Jesus lived on earth.

We have several witnesses to a text known as the Marcionite gospel, and I think you have seen that I take quite pretty seriously their testimony to the contents of that text. But what witnesses do we have to the origin of that text vis-à-vis the gospel of Luke? They are too late to witness to that, and I have found no evidence that they are basing their conclusion (that Marcion mutilated Luke) on anything other than the texts themselves and their own assumptions.

Except if orthodox Christians around 130 AD knew that Marcion's gospel appeared after gLuke was known to exist, and that oral "tradition" got transmitted for less than a generation in the next 20 years to Irenaeus. Actually, Irenaeus might have known in his youth directly from old eyewitnesses about that fact.
Also, there are other pieces of evidence showing gLuke was written before gMarcion: http://historical-jesus.info/53.html point 2), 3), & 4).

Cordially Bernard

Bernard Muller wrote:Why attest to any eyewitness testimony to Jesus if it was well known that Jesus was a human who got crucified on earth (http://historical-jesus.info/19.html)? In that case why would we expect Paul to say: there are many eyewitnesses who can testify that Jesus existed on earth. Paul did not have to deal with Jesus mythicists and had no reason to "prove" against many_centuries_later mythicists that Jesus lived on earth.

I am not sure I disagree with this. But I am also not sure what the relevance is to our discussion. I have already said that a case can be made for the Pauline epistles with respect to some kind of eyewitness testimony. But I can also say that, if it turned out that Paul knew nothing of a real historical Jesus, only a couple of passages of his would potentially be a surprise ("brother of the Lord" being one of them) and therefore succumb to reinterpretation. IOW, yes, Paul can write what he writes for the most part with full knowledge of an historical Jesus, but he can also write what he writes for the most part without any such knowledge, just a series of legends with no actual historical core; most of Paul falls into the non liquet category; only a handful of passages may tilt one way or another.

Except if orthodox Christians around 130 AD knew that Marcion's gospel appeared after gLuke was known to exist, and that oral "tradition" got transmitted for less than a generation in the next 20 years to Irenaeus. Actually, Irenaeus might have known in his youth directly from old eyewitnesses about that fact.

Yes, it is possible that the circumstances of the composition of Marcion's gospel got transmitted orally. Now... what is your evidence that this is the case? Possibility does not equal probability until you mount a viable argument for it.

Ben.

Ben C. Smith wrote: and that Paul wrote pretty much all that we have of the seven epistles commonly deemed authentic,




Ben.

One of the classic mistakes is to think Paul authored these text by himself Ben.

Most were a community effort which is also why many amateurs seem to find so may interpolations and redactions, They don't understand the nature of the text.

The epistle header often speaks of the direct co authors involved. It does not mean there were no indirect authors involved.


How much was his hand or even a scribe doing the actual writing is unknown