John the Baptist & Early Christianity

[Will Due]

35 minutes ago, Batanat said:

this is far from decisive of course. 

 

 

 

[Piney]

38 minutes ago, Batanat said:

I do think it's plausible that Mark might've been an ethnic Roman,

I agree with that and think it's plausible that his Gospel was written in Rome. 

[Will Due]

 

Lot's of things are plausible. 

Such as the original writings of the NT being based on something that actually happened. On true events.

 

 

[eight bits]

1 hour ago, joc said:

I get the gospels all mixed up in my head...but...in some writings somewhere...Peter in the Garden of Gethsemane pulled out his sword and attacked those who had come to arrest Jesus.

It was a story that improved in the telling. In Mark, it is unclear who wounded the servant; it could have been friendly fire, the scene as a whole is chaos in Mark. Mark's Jesus also most assuredly does not stick the ear back on. Later, Peter does the deed and Jesus does one last healing miracle. John rewrites the whole thing, Jesus single handedly fells the whole arrest party and then surrenders to them, because he needs to get killed in order to save the world.

I think the more telling detail in Mark about Peter is that Peter promises that he won't leave Jesus even when the others have. He keeps his word, and only  leaves the scene when it is just too clear that anything he could do would only make matters worse than they already are (almost as if Jesus hadn't predicted his defection, but Jesus was telling Peter the omen which meant it was time to give up, because larger forces were then playing themselves out).

1 hour ago, joc said:

Perhaps the entire Christian experience is based loosely on an advertising campaign by those who were attempting to create a Magic Jesus Story for the express purpose of increasing the profit margin on the young 'prophet's' body parts.

If so, a practice that continued well into the Middle Ages 

 

@Will Due

OK, it's a narrative then. I thought it might have been a "sayings gospel" or a claim about Q. Thank you.

 

@Batanat

1 hour ago, Batanat said:

but does this imply one person making different drafts of his own work, or multiple people who either added to an original core piece or perhaps collaborated or were compiled together?

The possibilities are endless. Writers have so many different "processes" (as we now like to call whatever a creative person does when producing work). A real doozie of a process is the one for (apprpriately enough) Godspell. It just goes on and on, spanning the 1970's through a Broadway revival in 2011-12, with a film along the way. Just the story of one song, "Beautiful City," takes a long paragraph to tell. "By My/his Side" is another song in the show with a long paragraph backstory. Then there are the production variations. Godspell notoriously has no scripted resurrection, and so was unpopular with Evangelicals - until one of the Bible Colleges remebered that there's no resurrection scene in the canon, either. So, they staged a post-resurrection reunion without changing a word or note of the show, as they were forbidden to do by contract.

And yet, despite more than 40 years of serial revision, Godspell is as coherent as if it were a single person's work.

But of course the canonical Gospels were all written down completely finished as if by dictation from G_d to moody loners with pens. Uh huh.

1 hour ago, Batanat said:

was Mark the Blavatsky of his day, lol)

1 hour ago, Batanat said:

which would appear to work thematically quite well with Pauline doctrine and his ideological divide with Cephas.

There is an irony. Paul doesn't tell the story of his confrontation with Peter-Cephas in Antioch very well. I also think that that's the kind of detail that a writer like Mark (or Team Mark, or whatever the real authorship was) would notice. We think this is history, so if there was a real Rocky, he would have a side that we'd like to hear. Paul tells us just enough to explain why he calls Rocky a hypocrite (a lapse rather like that of denying Jesus), but nothing at all about what Rocky might have been thinking (as the later evangelists simply ditch Mark's entire promise-keeping, critical-information-lacking, utterly out-of-his-depth aspects of Rocky in the courtyard).

That, by the way, is how I think of Paul's influence on Mark. Paul throws out an idea, and Mark uses that as a "prompt" (as writing teachers and students call them these days) to flesh out a scene.

Paul: Look at what Peter did!

Mark: Why would Peter do such a thing?

Paul: (Silence, but obviously thinking "because Peter is a two-faced coward")

Mark: Hmm, OK. A hack writer would go with what Paul so strongly suggests, that Peter is a two-faced coward. But a better writer would ask, under what circumstances might an honorable Peter act that way, and yet an honorable Paul would interpret it as cowardice?

Then Mark notices that Antioch falls way outside the time frame of the story he's writing.

Mark: Note to self: Give Peter a scence where superficially he acts like he is letting down the side, but in reality, he is behaving as honorably as he can, and as effectively for the cause as circumstances permit. Maybe throw it into the Passion somewhere. Oh, and have him surrounded by armed hostiles when it happens. And throw in a woman. We need more women in this story.

Edited October 20, 2019 by eight bits

[Will Due]

 

Even today, even when a recording exists of exactly what a public person had said or done, even when there's video, you will read characterizations by reporters who attempt to make something other than what really happened plausible.

But the audio and visual record will stand the test of time forever. 

No matter what is plausible. 

 

[Will Due]

6 minutes ago, eight bits said:

 

@Batanat

The possibilities are endless.

 

And yet no matter what the possible spin might be, the truth will always remain true.

Perhaps especially when characterized otherwise.

 

 

[Batanat]

1 hour ago, Will Due said:

 

Lot's of things are plausible. 

Such as the original writings of the NT being based on something that actually happened. On true events.

 

 

I mean there's honestly very little in there for which that could be said, but sure, it's possible that there's a historical kernel to it all. I won't go so far as to say plausible because there'd need to be a robust argument for that conclusion, not just the sheer possibility.

[Will Due]

58 minutes ago, Batanat said:

there'd need to be a robust argument for that conclusion

 

Pardon me but there can be an arguement that never reaches a conclusion. Argue anyway.

And all of that will have nothing to do with the truth of what really happened.

In fact, as far as I'm concerned, as well as with many others if I may be so bold, the more there are those who profess to characterize truth as something it isn't, the more it serves to bolster the faith of those who already have it and eventually spark it in those who don't. 

Thank you for your service.

 

 

Edited October 20, 2019 by Will Due

[Batanat]

1 hour ago, eight bits said:

It was a story that improved in the telling. In Mark, it is unclear who wounded the servant; it could have been friendly fire, the scene as a whole is chaos in Mark. Mark's Jesus also most assuredly does not stick the ear back on. Later, Peter does the deed and Jesus does one last healing miracle. John rewrites the whole thing, Jesus single handedly fells the whole arrest party and then surrenders to them, because he needs to get killed in order to save the world.

I think the more telling detail in Mark about Peter is that Peter promises that he won't leave Jesus even when the others have. He keeps his word, and only  leaves the scene when it is just too clear that anything he could do would only make matters worse than they already are (almost as if Jesus hadn't predicted his defection, but Jesus was telling Peter the omen which meant it was time to give up, because larger forces were then playing themselves out).

If so, a practice that continued well into the Middle Ages 

 

@Will Due

OK, it's a narrative then. I thought it might have been a "sayings gospel" or a claim about Q. Thank you.

 

@Batanat

The possibilities are endless. Writers have so many different "processes" (as we now like to call whatever a creative person does when producing work). A real doozie of a process is the one for (apprpriately enough) Godspell. It just goes on and on, spanning the 1970's through a Broadway revival in 2011-12, with a film along the way. Just the story of one song, "Beautiful City," takes a long paragraph to tell. "By My/his Side" is another song in the show with a long paragraph backstory. Then there are the production variations. Godspell notoriously has no scripted resurrection, and so was unpopular with Evangelicals - until one of the Bible Colleges remebered that there's no resurrection scene in the canon, either. So, they staged a post-resurrection reunion without changing a word or note of the show, as they were forbidden to do by contract.

And yet, despite more than 40 years of serial revision, Godspell is as coherent as if it were a single person's work.

But of course the canonical Gospels were all written down completely finished as if by dictation from G_d to moody loners with pens. Uh huh.

It's funny: the first time I saw Godspell I was a child (maybe 10?) and it was a community theatre production. And it was precisely one of the revised versions with the tacked-on resurrection at the end. And I remember I thought that was very odd, because I was aware even then that Stephen Schwartz is a fellow MOT: so all throughout the finale I was just puzzling in my juvenile brain trying to figure out why a Jewish man would write something so blatantly Christian, lmao. I distinctly remember that "All For the Best" was the song I liked the most at the time; which honestly might be the true core message of the gospels' philosophy, lol. In some ways I wonder if having seen that show might've presaged my academic interest in Christianity rather than only Judaism.

1 hour ago, eight bits said:

There is an irony. Paul doesn't tell the story of his confrontation with Peter-Cephas in Antioch very well. I also think that that's the kind of detail that a writer like Mark (or Team Mark, or whatever the real authorship was) would notice. We think this is history, so if there was a real Rocky, he would have a side that we'd like to hear. Paul tells us just enough to explain why he calls Rocky a hypocrite (a lapse rather like that of denying Jesus), but nothing at all about what Rocky might have been thinking (as the later evangelists simply ditch Mark's entire promise-keeping, critical-information-lacking, utterly out-of-his-depth aspects of Rocky in the courtyard).

It does sometimes make me wonder if there's any merit to the Mark-as-play idea that's occasionally floated. In the raw text, Peter's actions can still be read as spineless and cast him in a bad light. But perhaps with the added drama of performance — music, costume/masks, actor's interpretations, etc. — the subtext of Peter's motivations could be more pronounced and understandable. There are many idiosyncrasies in Mark that could perhaps be read this way (his habitual use of ambiguous pronouns would be less confusing were there an actor on stage portraying the character in question; his fondness for puns and multilingual wordplay might be easier to catch if said aloud for a multicultural audience (like those in Rome) than simply being read as a book; the disciples have the minimum number for a Greek chorus, and though most don't really have much dialogue, it would be easy to envision them as an ensemble supporting cast, perhaps not only narrating the story in typical chorus fashion but changing costumes and masks to play all the minor characters as needed; etc., etc.). 

1 hour ago, eight bits said:

That, by the way, is how I think of Paul's influence on Mark. Paul throws out an idea, and Mark uses that as a "prompt" (as writing teachers and students call them these days) to flesh out a scene.

Paul: Look at what Peter did!

Mark: Why would Peter do such a thing?

Paul: (Silence, but obviously thinking "because Peter is a two-faced coward")

Mark: Hmm, OK. A hack writer would go with what Paul so strongly suggests, that Peter is a two-faced coward. But a better writer would ask, under what circumstances might an honorable Peter act that way, and yet an honorable Paul would interpret it as cowardice?

Then Mark notices that Antioch falls way outside the time frame of the story he's writing.

Mark: Note to self: Give Peter a scence where superficially he acts like he is letting down the side, but in reality, he is behaving as honorably as he can, and as effectively for the cause as circumstances permit. Maybe throw it into the Passion somewhere. Oh, and have him surrounded by armed hostiles when it happens. And throw in a woman. We need more women in this story.

Yes, I agree that Paul's influence on the gospel is largely as a series of prompt topics for the author(s) to creatively incorporate into their narrative. I've sometimes wondered if Mark didn't take the "two-faced" idea and decide to lean into it so hard as to practically go absurdist: splitting Cephas into more than one character (Simon/Peter/Caiaphas(?)/Andrew(?); Semitic vs. Greek). I've long thought that Andrew seems like a weird metatextual echo of Simon/Peter; his name just means "man", and he not only isn't attested by non-gospel sources, but he's also practically nonexistent in the actual plot. And how would we be expected to believe literally that a Hebrew like Simon would somehow conspicuously have a Greek brother? Peter's family is also highlighted in mentioning his mother-in-law (for a multilingual pun, since "mother-in-law" and "fever" sound alike in Hebrew and Aramaic), reinforcing his Jewish heritage. So whence this unexplained Greek brother? Seems to me that Mark might have liked the "two-faced", "Jew to Jew and Greek to Greek" prompts so much that he went absolutely wild and constructed multiple characters based on them, not just Simon/Peter.   

[Will Due]

 

For all the scholarly activity going on here, the question is, is there interest in discovering truth or is the interest in premeditatedly characterizing truth to suit an untrue purpose?

 

 

Edited October 20, 2019 by Will Due

[eight bits]

1 hour ago, Batanat said:

It does sometimes make me wonder if there's any merit to the Mark-as-play idea that's occasionally floated.

Well, here's the scorecard. Mark is, as a matter of fact, what is called in the trade a "treatment," that is, the prose description of a real or hypothetical dramatic performance. We know this because the late British actor Alec McCowen many times did a solo dramatic performance of the King James Version Mark, verbatim. It played well and sold well. There are several professional solo versions now, and at least one academic tag-team version (six performers, only one onstage at a time - I saw it, it was more than OK, although with six performers, I might have divided up the workload differently. Might have?).

We also know that back in ancient times, reading a text meant reading it aloud (even alone by oneself, or perhaps a slave might do it for an audience of one, but often the reader had a real audience, plural listeners). The usual threshold for a "play" is two characters, and two character plays (awkwardly called two-handers) are legion. Mark divides up nicely into about 45 scenes that can be played with at most two voices onstage at any given time. (How that works for who plays what role when and why is a long story; both players would play Jesus or the Narrator-Chorus at different times, rather than have each player and only that player enact a fixed role or set of roles all night.)

The final thing that weighs in favor of the intended-as-performance-piece hypothesis is that for an audience even to notice the many  internal cross-referencing features placed in Mark presupposes experiencing it in a single sitting (OK, with one intermission), beginning to end, and in the order written. Its length is conducive to such a presentation (McCowen's running time exclusive of the interval/intermission was 100 minutes or so). It simply does not read like anything written for consumption in liturgically convenient chunks, in whatever order fits the calendar, with at least a week betwen chunks. It is not something built to be searched for isolated proof texts, either. Mark's whole is vastly more than the sum of its parts.

I have only scrupulous doubt that Mark was intended as a perfomance piece. It swims, flies, waddles and quacks like a duck. It's a duck, IMO.

Edited October 21, 2019 by eight bits

[Will Due]

23 minutes ago, eight bits said:

Well, here's the scorecard. Mark is, as a matter of fact, what is called in the trade a "treatment," that is, the prose description of a real or hypothetical dramatic performance. We know this because the late British actor Alec McCowen many times did a solo dramatic performance of the King James Version Mark, verbatim. It played well and sold well. There are several professional solo versions now, and at least one academic tag-team version (six performers, only one onstage at a time - I saw it, it was more than OK, although with six performers, I might have divided up the workload differently. Might have?).

We also know that back in ancient times, reading a text meant reading it aloud (even alone by oneself, or perhaps a slave might do it for an audience of one, but often the reader had a real audience, plural listeners). The usual threshold for a "play" is two characters, and two character plays (awkwardly called two-handers) are legion. Mark divides up nicely into about 45 scenes that can be played with at most two voices onstage at any given time. (How that works for who plays what role when and why is a long story; both players would play Jesus or the Narrator-Chorus at different times, rather than have each player and only that player enact a fixed role or set of roles all night.)

The final thing that weighs in favor of the intended-as-performance-piece hypothesis is that for an audience even to notice the many  internal cross-referencing features placed in Mark presupposes experiencing it in a single sitting (OK, with one intermission), beginning to end, and in the order written. Its length is conducive to such a presentation (McCowen's running time exclusive of the interval/intermission was 100 minutes or so). It simply does not read like anything written for consumption in liturgically convenient chunks, in whatever order fits the calendar, with at least a week betwen chunks. It is not something built to be searched for isolated proof texts, either. Mark's whole is vastly more than the sum of its parts.

I have only scrupulous doubt that Mark was intended as a perfomance piece. It swims, flies, waddles and quacks like a duck. It's a duck, IMO.

 

But the only ones quacking are you lol.

 

 

[Piney]

2 hours ago, Will Due said:

For all the scholarly activity going on here, the question is, is there interest in discovering truth or is the interest in premeditatedly characterizing truth to suit an untrue purpose?

Quote

^{122:1.1 (1344.4)} Joseph, the human father of Jesus (Joshua ben Joseph), was a Hebrew of the Hebrews, albeit he carried many non-Jewish racial strains which had been added to his ancestral tree from time to time by the female lines of his progenitors.

Quote

Racially considered, it is hardly proper to regard Mary as a Jewess. In culture and belief she was a Jew, but in hereditary endowment she was more a composite of Syrian, Hittite, Phoenician, Greek, and Egyptian stocks, her racial inheritance being more general than that of Joseph.

Syrians, Phoenicians, and Hebrews were genetically the same. They are all Canaanite. So it's the same "stock".  Egyptians share about 95% of their genes. 

Hittites and Greeks were pretty much genetically the same except for that Minoan streak through the Greeks.  Hittites did mix heavily with the Hebrews on all sides though.

and exactly how is "Jewish" a "race"?

and why are advanced beings using such a ignorant and outdated concept? 

https://www.urantia.org/urantia-book-standardized/paper-122-birth-and-infancy-jesus

[Will Due]

7 minutes ago, Piney said:

Syrians, Phoenicians, and Hebrews were genetically the same. They are all Canaanite. So it's the same "stock".  Egyptians share about 95% of their genes. 

Hittites and Greeks were pretty much genetically the same except for that Minoan streak through the Greeks.  Hittites did mix heavily with the Hebrews on all sides though.

and exactly how is "Jewish" a "race"?

and why are advanced beings using such a ignorant and outdated concept? 

https://www.urantia.org/urantia-book-standardized/paper-122-birth-and-infancy-jesus

 

Do you have a racial make up?

What is your racial inheritance?

 

 

Edited October 21, 2019 by Will Due

[Will Due]

22 minutes ago, Piney said:

outdated concept

 

An outdated concept in 1934? Lot's of concepts from 1934 are outdated today.

Except truth.

Truth never becomes outdated.

 

 

[Piney]

3 minutes ago, Will Due said:

Truth never becomes outdated.

Now if you could actually understand that idea...which you can't. You'd be good.

[Will Due]

21 minutes ago, Piney said:

You'd be good.

 

None is good but God.

 

 

[jmccr8]

12 minutes ago, Will Due said:

 

None is good but God.

 

 

Hi Will

This thread is interesting to follow but You seem to think that disrupting it with no real understanding of the topic nor interested in learning something so why not go stir the pot in your own thread because that is where UBean concepts can be discussed.

jmccr8

Edited October 21, 2019 by jmccr8
spulling

[Will Due]

1 minute ago, jmccr8 said:

Hi Will

This thread is interesting to follow but You seem to think that disrupting it with no real understanding of the topic nor interested in learning something so why not go stir the pot in your own thread because that is where UBean concepts can be discussed.

jmccr8

 

No j, the intent by the OP of this thread and others, is to dismantle, disparage and mock the truth about Jesus, what he did and who he is.

I don't find that interesting at all and I will always do my best to speak up in opposition to it in this thread (and any other thread where this occurs) with whatever means I have.

Okay?

 

 

[jmccr8]

Just now, Will Due said:

 

No j, the intent by the OP of this thread and others, is to dismantle, disparage and mock the truth about Jesus, what he did and who he is.

I don't find that interesting at all and I will always do my best to speak up in opposition to it in this thread (and any other thread where this occurs) with whatever means I have.

Okay?

 

 

Hi Will

People are discussing a subject of interest and your perception of people is that they are mocking which is subjective so no it's not okay to not pay attention and flap your gums when you don't know Jack about what is being discussed Alright. 

jmccr8

[Piney]

3 minutes ago, Will Due said:

I don't find that interesting at all and I will always do my best to speak up in opposition to it in this thread (and any other thread where this occurs) with whatever means I have.

Which isn't much...

[Will Due]

1 minute ago, jmccr8 said:

Hi Will

People are discussing a subject of interest and your perception of people is that they are mocking which is subjective so no it's not okay to not pay attention and flap your gums when you don't know Jack about what is being discussed Alright. 

jmccr8

 

No j, the gum flapping going on here is being done by those who completely don't understand a thing about the truth of what they're trying to malign.

Are you going to join them now?

 

 

[Piney]

30 minutes ago, jmccr8 said:

UBean

[Will Due]

1 minute ago, Piney said:

Which isn't much...

 

Maybe but it's more than enough to get the job done. 

 

 

[Piney]

Just now, Will Due said:

No j, the gum flapping going on here is being done by those who completely don't understand a thing about the truth of what they're trying to malign.

Yeah, your soooo well educated. All your doing is trolling.