Kata Markon

[Hudson Barton <hhbv AT highwinds.com>]

Firstly, to respond to Mr. Hindley. I must apologize for the
erroneous contention that Josephus had not lived in Palestine.  I
don't know where I got that and it is was a truly bizarre statement.


> Antonio Jerez wrote:

> ...the gospel writers worked very much like Josephus. Josephus
> invents dialogues for his heroes (a standard feature of "history" in
> antiquity) and blends myths about Moses and others with real
> history. The problem for a historian is to disentangle history from
> fiction.


Can you provide examples of this in Josephus?

> > None of the authors of the gospels appear to have been a disciple of
>  >Jesus himself. But even if they were it doesn't take away the fictional
> > character of much in the gospels.
>
>  >>Petitio principii!  You are begging the question in exactly the
> > > circular manner of Mr. Alward.
>
> I don´t know in what way I am using circular logic. If claiming that
> accounts from antiquity talking about Godmen walking on water appear
> to be fictional - specially when they smell of being blueprinted out
> of the OT - then you could just accuse all historians of using
> circular logic when they dismiss such tales as history.

When the same statement is used both as a premise and a conclusion or
when one of the premises could not be known to be true unless the
conclusion were first assumed to be true, then you have begged the
question ("Petitio Principii").  For example,

"Even if there were reason to believe some of the material in the
Gospels to express eye witness accounts of Jesus' life, the accretion
of legend, the description of miracles performed by Jesus, which
exist in these writings make it difficult, if not impossible, to
extract from them any reliable historical testimony about the events
described." [attributed to Dr. Avrum Stroll, U. of British Columbia].
Here Dr. Stroll says that regardless of the question of eye witness
testimony, he reject the authenticity of the Gospel accounts on the
ground that they attribute miracles to Jesus.  But how does one know
whether miracles occurred in connection with Jesus' life unless he
investigates the primary documents?  Obviously Dr. Stroll is arguing
in a circle. (History & Christianity, John Warwick Montgomery, 1965)


>  >>As for your premise:
>
> > > a. John was not only Jesus' disciple, he was closer to Jesus that most.
> > > b. Mark was not an disciple, but he wrote under Petrine authority.
> > > c. Matthew was one of the original 12.
> > > d. Luke was not an eye-witness, but he was a gentile and an historian
>
> Those premises are not mine. I don't know where you got them from.


Did you not say "None of the authors of the gospels appear to have
been a disciple of Jesus himself" ?

> If you are talking about the idea about a crucified Messiah going against
> the standard Jewish messianic hopes of the day, then I agree with you.
> If you argue that Jesus himself preached that he was going to be the
> crucified Messiah as witnessed about in the OT then I am not with
> you.


I was referring to the essene "messiahs", but now you're saying
something that I did not anticipate.  You must think that Jesus did
not anticipate his death any more than his disciples did, thereby
requiring a paranoid and sputtering church to invent the words that
are posed as direct quotations of Jesus wherein he proceeds in almost
morbid anticipation of the end of his ministry?  I find it surprising
that you can find no instances of Jesus foretelling his crucifiction
and resurrection.

> According to my reading of the gospel evidence the idea about a
> suffering Son of Man was the creation of the early Church. To make
> sense of Jesus unexpected death his disciples searched the
> scriptures for verses in the OT that could explain things (see Luke
> 24:25-27). They  found them in Isaiah and Daniel among other places.
> Obviously the reinterpretation of these passages in the OT must have
> caught on among certain Jews - if not we wouldn't have the Church.


Exactly, you are saying that whatever is inexplicable (AND BECAUSE IT
IS INEXPLICABLE), derives from the OT and/or from common myth, and
then cunning storytellers invented the dialog and circumstances that
would accommodate the myth.  I hope you would agree that this
hypothesis requires a certain leap of faith, but more importantly, I
hope you would recognize its circular logic.

If only you would make a contention that a passages like the first
two chapters of Matthew are non-history, I would agree.

  a.  Matt. 1 & 2 is unconfirmed by the other Gospels
  b.  its language is that of myth
  c.  it covers long periods of time while inserting little if any detail.
  d.  it is highly structured
  e.  it does not specifically claim to be historical
  f.  it is unconfirmed by any outside sources

History was not Matthew's objective in these passages.  Thus,
Matthew's geneology, the magi story, Herod's murder of the innocents,
and the flight into Egypt should all be studied for their mystical
content but not for their historical content.  The skeptic's argument
against the historicity of these passages is simply posing a "straw
man."