Comment Thread for The Resurrection of Jesus - Apologiaphoenix vs Gary

[Apologiaphoenix]

To be fair, I don't think textual criticism can show authorship, only accurate handing down of the text.

[Gary]

Gary. I say my position and you don't interact with it. You could also find my position elsewhere.

Why should I think you'll seriously interact with anything now?

It's a very easy question, Nick. Your hesitancy to answer makes me assume that you are concerned how your position will be received by other Christians on this thread. Are you a universalist, Nick? If so, God (whoever he/she/or it is) bless you!

[Gary]

I also agree with much of what Stein said and sure, Jesus could have set out to fulfil many prophecies, though some he obviously couldn't.

He couldn't? Why?

[Gary]

The sources aren't anonymous in the sense that you think they are. The scrolls of the gospels would have had name tags on them to identify who the authors were. The name tags have just been lost over time so they are only anonymous to us. They were not anonymous to the people at the time. If the gospels were truly anonymous in the way you think they are then there would be multiple authors claimed to have written each gospel, however this is not the case. What we find is consistent attribution to the writers we know as Matthew, Luke, John and Mark. I would also like to point out that textual criticism has shown these authors to be the true authors of the gospels. So there is no anonymous about it from our point of view.

Name tags?? We don't need no stinking NAME TAGS!

(Blazing Saddles, if you don't recognize it)

I love that well-worn Christian assumption! The four gospels had name tags on them all along. No one ever referred to these books by the name on the name tag until Irenaeus, approximately 100 years after they were written, but dammit, there were name tags on them all along, ever since ol' Matthew, John Mark, Doc. Luke, and John wrote them!

And you know there were name tags on the scrolls...how???

Quote: "What we find is consistent attribution to the writers we know as Matthew, Luke, John and Mark. I would also like to point out that textual criticism has shown these authors to be the true authors of the gospels."

I smell a fundamentalist among us!

[Gary]

The sources aren't anonymous in the sense that you think they are. The scrolls of the gospels would have had name tags on them to identify who the authors were. The name tags have just been lost over time so they are only anonymous to us. They were not anonymous to the people at the time. If the gospels were truly anonymous in the way you think they are then there would be multiple authors claimed to have written each gospel, however this is not the case. What we find is consistent attribution to the writers we know as Matthew, Luke, John and Mark. I would also like to point out that textual criticism has shown these authors to be the true authors of the gospels. So there is no anonymous about it from our point of view.

[psstein]

The traditional authorship of the gospels was very possibly on them from the start, see Martin Hengel's The Four Gospels and the One Gospel of Jesus Christ.

If we think Hengel is wrong, then the first mention of them we know of is Papias' The Exposition of the Logion of the Lord, a five volume set of which we sadly only have fragments. It was probably written somewhere between 110 and 130. Irenaeus quotes Papias' work in his Against Heresies, around the year 180.

Ehrman is a good scholar. This is pop Ehrman, who often will commentate on things he really shouldn't (i.e. Christology, life of Jesus, etc.) and imply things he knows aren't true.

[Gary]

Again, one does not get separated from God for eternity for only rejecting the gospel. The separation is a result of one's actions that were not good. Anytime one is a jerk will be judged.

So being a jerk merits eternal punishment??? Isn't that an extreme case of the punishment not fitting the crime??

No one could slap down this kind of Christian nonsense better than ol' Hitch, may his bones rest in peace. Here is how Hitch would respond to your statement, Wormy:

[psstein]

Drink! Hitchens put forward as a serious source!

[Gary]

The traditional authorship of the gospels was very possibly on them from the start, see Martin Hengel's The Four Gospels and the One Gospel of Jesus Christ.

If we think Hengel is wrong, then the first mention of them we know of is Papias' The Exposition of the Logion of the Lord, a five volume set of which we sadly only have fragments. It was probably written somewhere between 110 and 130. Irenaeus quotes Papias' work in his Against Heresies, around the year 180.

Ehrman is a good scholar. This is pop Ehrman, who often will commentate on things he really shouldn't (i.e. Christology, life of Jesus, etc.) and imply things he knows aren't true.

Do you believe that the traditional authors wrote the Gospels, Stein? Are you saying that the authorship of the first four books of the New Testament are NOT something that a NT scholar (Bart Ehrman) should comment on?? Isn't your real problem, Stein, that the comments by this particular highly respected NT scholar blows the near certainty espoused by a large percentage of Christianity regarding the traditional authorship of the Gospels out of the proverbial water?

[Gary]

Drink! Hitchens put forward as a serious source!

Hitch isn't quoting scholarship, he just uses good ol' common sense to slap the snot out of pretentious, pontificating theists. It's quite funny.

[Gary]

The traditional authorship of the gospels was very possibly on them from the start, see Martin Hengel's The Four Gospels and the One Gospel of Jesus Christ.

If we think Hengel is wrong, then the first mention of them we know of is Papias' The Exposition of the Logion of the Lord, a five volume set of which we sadly only have fragments. It was probably written somewhere between 110 and 130. Irenaeus quotes Papias' work in his Against Heresies, around the year 180.

Ehrman is a good scholar. This is pop Ehrman, who often will commentate on things he really shouldn't (i.e. Christology, life of Jesus, etc.) and imply things he knows aren't true.

"very possibly"

The two words upon which the entire Christian supernatural tale is constructed.

[psstein]

History deals with probability, Gary, not certainty. You're again exposing how little you know. I'd put Hengel up against Ehrman any day of the week. Both are/were good scholars (Hengel has since died). Maybe you should read Hengel's book. Being a NT scholar doesn't mean you have deep knowledge in every part of the NT. Ehrman is a manuscript specialist, and his work in that area has been fairly good. His popular work, on life of Jesus and Christology, has not. My problem with Bart Ehrman is he a) reads a lot of the text in a fundamentalist way and b) acts as though he's representative of all of critical scholarship, when he isn't. Ehrman is respected, sure. So are John Meier, Craig Evans, and James D.G. Dunn, who hold different views.

As for the authorship, I think John Mark wrote Mark and Luke wrote Luke-Acts. I'm fairly convinced Matthew didn't write Matthew and I'm agnostic as to John. I've seen good arguments both ways for John, but neither side has really convinced me. Bauckham's treatment of it in Jesus and the Eyewitnesses as well as The Testimony of the Beloved Disciple seems somewhat contrived, but some of the other work done on John (for example, Raymond Brown's) leads me to believe there is a significant amount of eyewitness testimony involved.

I really don't care what most Christians think. I care about what scholars think and can support.

[Gary]

History deals with probability, Gary, not certainty. You're again exposing how little you know. I'd put Hengel up against Ehrman any day of the week. Both are/were good scholars (Hengel has since died). Maybe you should read Hengel's book. Being a NT scholar doesn't mean you have deep knowledge in every part of the NT. Ehrman is a manuscript specialist, and his work in that area has been fairly good. His popular work, on life of Jesus and Christology, has not. My problem with Bart Ehrman is he a) reads a lot of the text in a fundamentalist way and b) acts as though he's representative of all of critical scholarship, when he isn't. Ehrman is respected, sure. So are John Meier, Craig Evans, and James D.G. Dunn, who hold different views.

As for the authorship, I think John Mark wrote Mark and Luke wrote Luke-Acts. I'm fairly convinced Matthew didn't write Matthew and I'm agnostic as to John. I've seen good arguments both ways for John, but neither side has really convinced me. Bauckham's treatment of it in Jesus and the Eyewitnesses as well as The Testimony of the Beloved Disciple seems somewhat contrived, but some of the other work done on John (for example, Raymond Brown's) leads me to believe there is a significant amount of eyewitness testimony involved.

I really don't care what most Christians think. I care about what scholars think and can support.

So you do not believe that any of the Gospels were written by an eyewitness?

If that is the case, then here is what we have, if you are correct:

We have two accounts, Matthew and John, for whom we have no idea regarding their authorship. However, we do know that "Matthew" borrowed heavily from "Mark" for his story, and that much of "John's" gospel bears little resemblance to "Mark's" gospel, the first gospel written.

So that leaves Mark and Luke whom Christians claim were associates of Peter and Paul. But Paul was not an eyewitness to any of the events described in the Gospels, at least that we know. So Luke's information had to come from other sources. The author of Luke says in the first chapter of Luke that he carefully researched his sources and that his information was "eyewitness testimony". However, what does "eyewitness testimony" mean? Did Luke interview actual eyewitnesses to the post resurrection appearances or did he interview/obtain information from sources that were alleged to be reporting eyewitness accounts? We just don't know. I don't believe that the author of Luke/Acts was a liar, but how can we be sure that his information was accurate? Luke too borrowed heavily from Mark.

We have no evidence that John Mark was an eyewitness to any of the events which occurred prior to the alleged Ascension. So if we are to believe that the author of Mark, the first gospel written, was John Mark, Paul's traveling companion, how can we be sure that Mark wrote down the information correctly? Maybe he remembered Peter's sermons incorrectly. After all, he was writing the stories down years after Peter's death. And remember, the original Gospel of Mark has ZERO post resurrection appearances.

So we have zero eyewitness testimony, if your position is correct, and we only have one source, if the author of Mark was really John Mark, Peter's disciple, that would be relating to us second-hand information, directly from an alleged eyewitness. But this second-hand information includes ZERO post resurrection appearances, only an empty tomb, and as we have previously discussed, an empty tomb has several possible, alternative, natural explanations. Christians may not believe that these natural explanations are plausible, but they can't say that they are impossible, and the funny thing is that most non-Christians believe that these non-divine explanations are very probable to be the explanation for the empty tomb.

So do you still believe, Stein, that the evidence for the resurrection of Jesus is "very strong"??

[psstein]

Written by an eyewitness? I think it depends on if John wrote John.

Based on eyewitness accounts? Absolutely.

[One Bad Pig]

Feel free to show where I said such a thing.

For the sarcastically impaired the following is said in jest

If Gary says you're a fundamentalist, then by God you ARE one.