Unfortunately you have not shown that you were aware of their contents. You must have forgotten that you have already admitted that you have not done much research of the HJ question and don't really care whether or not Jesus did exist.
Not quite accurate.
I do not focus as much on HJ as I focus on Middle Eastern anthropology in general.
However, yes, it is accurate that I find the subject of Jesus' existence rather benign as it makes hardly any impact upon the course of history if such a figure as the HJ version lived or did not.
Either way, the same result appears to have occurred, and the figure of the HJ is far too small to have impacted any civilization for even if the HJ did not live, the stories did all of the influencing and not any real HJ individual if such should have lived.
Take Jesus out; same result.
Add Jesus in; same result.
However, one subject that does have impact is what was going on with a variety of sub-cultures in the Middle East, as well as Anatolia.
For instance, who are the "Sea Peoples"? How did the Gauls end up in Galatia to begin with and what impact did this have upon western Anatolia?
Who were some of the early following sub-cultures following Jesus traditions, where did they come from, what were their ideas on Jesus, what religious background did they have prior to converting to Jesus following, which texts were favored by which sub-culture, how did these sub-cultures influence the primary cultures of areas in which they traveled through or resided in?
How did the foundation of the Hebrew peoples accomplish its arrival and stability so quickly as to do so in less than 1,000 years from being scattered Canaanite highland herdsman?
These are merely examples, but these forms of investigations are bountiful in the region and are of far greater value to our historical record than the historicity of Jesus, who again, marks no impact in and of himself regardless if he lived or did not.
Either way, the same civilization account took place. The same councils and the same governments outlined and enforced the same doctrines and the tradition upon the western society was accomplished and done.
With the other questions above, our information on the subject is incomplete and capable of changing our understanding of what happened in history.
Knowing whether Jesus was real or not only changed that exact matter; it's the final piece and not the base-level alteration with extending ramifications.
For example, if the Sea Peoples (and I am not proposing this, but merely showing an example of value) were Gauls, then this would have great rippling impact on our understanding of civilization dynamics in and around 1500 to 1000 BCE, and would have extended considerations upon Galatia as well as the history of France, and Medieval Celtic history.
1. You did not even seem to know that Scholars have already argued that the author of gMark was most likely not a Jew.
Not at all. I am well aware of this.
In pointing out a problem with the HJ position and scholarship of accepting a cultural axiom without taking time to verify that axiom, I pointed out how radically different a result we get by changing the cultural axiom.
As an example, I gave the opposing position that Mark was written in Hebrew originally instead of Greek to show what kind of axiomatic impact occurs at that layer; for changing the culture radically changes the application of idiomatic evidence within the text.
Meaning, if some HJ proponent was making an argument from Mark based on the application of idioms as they are valued to Greek literature but instead Mark was written from Hebrew formation and not Grecian culture at all, then those arguments made on the axiom of Grecian culture would be immediately in question or irrelevant.
Yet, and this was my point in that, the field regularly lacks in taking the time to inquire the cultural fitting of the writing, and regularly dons a given habitual axiom.
2. You seem to have had no idea that Egyptians of antiquity did know a story of Jesus since at least the 2nd century.
3. You seem to have had NO idea that an Apologetic writer claimed gMark was known in Alexandria.
Not at all.
I rely on this information in my outline of textual dispersion found in
Hypothetical Recreation of the Lost Ebionite Text
As such, this would leave us with the idea that the non-Gnostic group may very well have traveled Southwest out of Judea more towards Alexandria than Antioch.
This refers to short-form Mark's relation to Alexandria.
Due to the grammatical and literary talent of Luke, as well as the deeply Hellenistic prose and narrative story telling, Luke can make sense as an origin around the Athenian region where concepts such as "Logos" were very prevalent and around which schools were available with connections to Alexandria.
If we theorize that Mark became long-form from running into the Asia Minor (the John/Revelation/Daniel apocalypse group), and that Luke received long-form Mark and not short-form Mark, and that Luke received long-form Matthew from being in contact with Alexandrian academia trade, and theorize that the John group in Asia Minor ripped off Luke (terribly I might add, as their grammar is incredibly inferior to Luke, and at times shows clear signs of stitching one section visually copied to another visually copied section with a section of inferior grammar to either section being stitched together) then this would account for the divergence from John from Matthew, Mark and Luke, and would account for the "Q" like isolated similarities of Luke to Matthew, as well as the isolated comparisons of Luke to Mark.
This would make sense if short-form Mark moved North with the "Gnostic Ebionite" movement, and then when moving West to the coast of Asia Minor became long-form Mark through the John group, meanwhile short-form Matthew moved south with the "non-Gnostic Ebionite" group who vanished quickly, but whose text was acquired into Alexandria whereby it was embellished with more Hellenistic tones than Hebrew tones (prologue and epilogue) borrowing from regional traditions of the Egyptian mysticism mythology which were popular in Hellenistic society at the time, then it would appear to us today as if we were missing a document like the theorized "Q" document as long-form Matthew and long-form Mark would not have had contact with each other until meeting up around the Athenian region comprised by the author of Luke.
And the mapping, therefore:
Which shows dispersion right into, centered in, and dispersed anew out of Alexandria.
4. You seem to have forgotten that the Septuagint which was used in the stories of Jesus was FIRST compiled in Egypt.
Not at all; in fact this influences my point and questions to you.
We know that the Septuagint began its formation in Alexandria, but it was not written by Egyptians there.
And to the point of issue, this is the problem. We have scores and scores of textual examples of individuals from other cultures going to Alexandria to write their varied works.
They were not Egyptian, but they did write in Alexandria.
This was because Alexandria was the best resource during this era; the most collected amount of information of all forms was in this location and so were the varies scholars and scribes of several languages.
If you really wanted to work on something with all of the possible help that you could get, especially if it was history, then you would go to Alexandria to do so.
If you wanted to convey that you learned of a peoples or events from a trusted source, then you informed everyone that you learned from the Egyptians (Alexandria) of the information for their credit was the scholastic gold standard of the era.
The librarians of Alexandria were considered the finest experts in their respective fields of study inside of the culture of Alexandria.
So much so that even after the beginnings of the various stages of destruction of the Alexandrian library, we still have individuals relying on Alexandrian scholars for a variety of information.
So in itself, it is not out of place to find any given text in Alexandria, for even if any of these texts did not first find themselves on papyri in Egypt, they would have quickly arrived there and would have been cataloged among the scores of other texts in holding at this great wealth of texts and education.
So we find the texts in Egypt.
Did Egyptians write all of them?
Did Egyptians write some of them and non-Egyptians in Alexandria wrote some of the others?
Did Egyptians write some of them and non-Egyptians not in Alexandria wrote some of the others and Egyptians made copies in Alexandria?
Did Egyptians write some of them and non-Egyptians not in Alexandria wrote some of the others and non-Egyptians made copies in Alexandria?
Did Egyptians write on behalf of dictation from some individual?
This kind of combining possibilities is rather lengthy, and the reason for my inquiry as to how you arrive at the conclusion that Egyptians wrote the texts.
I fully accept that the texts are found there, and that Alexandria was the academic hub for knowledge and resources where anyone would learn of a subject to what would be considered an expert level.
What I don't understand, because it really has not been disclosed, is how we go from finding them in Egypt to concluding that Egyptians authored the texts.
For example of the oddity that presents; how do we understand the absolutely ghastly grammar of John, and yet the exquisite grammar of Luke by the same academic specialists that were the Alexandrians?
How did such trained individuals so very terribly write in Greek in one text, and so terribly inconsistently (the grammar in John shifts repeatedly as if we are looking at multiple different individuals adding things in over time), and yet author such near Grecian perfection as Luke?
I am just presenting the evidence from antiquity that Jesus was a Myth until new evidence is found--that is all.
For something to be "mythology" it has to be some
one's mythology.
It is not simply a word that means, "fiction".
We cannot claim that the work is "mythology" until we can identify
whose mythology it was.
We can claim that it was not accurate, and we can charge that it was made up.
We cannot go as far as to claim it as mythology, however, without knowing which culture the myth belongs to, for mythology is only mythology by belonging and being adhered to by a culture.
We know that these stories became a mythology to the Roman empire eventually, but you are asserting that they were mythology of the Egyptians upon their genesis.
That is a very dramatic and radical claim, and one that requires us to show how this is a mythology that belongs to the Egyptians, as well as requires that we answer the other questions as well - such as how do we make sense of the same academic group writing John and Luke?
Again, I am not against the non-HJ position, nor am I against your proposition outright.
However, there are several issues with how far you take your proposition that I would need to work with you on ironing out, or you need to explain to satisfy the conflicts created by your strong proposition.
