The Historical Jesus II

[dejudge]

...The point about the Hebraic tonality is to show that this text would be utterly confusing to Rome, or at the least, its articulation would be mostly missed.

Your claim is the text would be utterly confusing to Rome it is quite low on logic.

gMark wriiten in Kione Greek, the same as the Septuagint, is the least difficult to understand.

The very Church of Rome canonized gMark.

Plus, authors of gMatthew and gLuke used some of the same text in gMark word for word.

In fact, gMatthew used virtually all of gMark and simply added more "details" to the events found in the Gospel attributed to Mark.

 

[maximara]

We're in very much agreement.
I am not proposing a Hebrew wrote Mark, just to be clear, as if a Hebrew wrote a religious text it would be in Hebrew - the sacred script of Law - and not in a mash of three languages.

The point about the Hebraic tonality is to show that this text would be utterly confusing to Rome, or at the least, its articulation would be mostly missed.

Assigning either Antiich or Alexandria by some agency of Antioch region is not to say, Hebrew.

As I pointed out back in post 7720:

Actually, as related in A&E's Who Wrote the Bible (the episode of that name not the whole series and not Robert Beckford's show of the same name) by the supposed time of Jesus Hebrew had effectively fell out of favor as "even though their religious text were still in Hebrew their home language had become entirely Greek"

Josheph Blankinsopp, Professor of Biblical Studies University of Notre Dame states "If you couldn't speak Greek by say the time of early Christianity you couldn't get a job. You wouldn't get a good job. a professional job. You had to know Greek in addition to your own language. And so you were getting to a point where Jews...the Jewish community in say Egypt and large cities like Alexandria didn't know Hebrew anymore they only knew Greek. And so you need a Greek version in the synagogue."

We are then told of the Septuagint (3rd century BCE) and Rabbi David Wolpe, lecturer at the University of Judaism explains why this was so important historically

So if Jews especially in the large cities didn't even know Hebrew why in the name of sanity would anyone with a brain in their head write a Gospel in Hebrew for them? That would be like in 2012 writing a major work in Latin for Roman Catholics and about as nonsensical.
IMHO the early Church fathers heard of a Jewish Gospel and assumed that it was in Hebrew. Back on Planet Reality if there ever had been a Jewish Gospel odds are it would have been written in Greek not Hebrew.

You do have a point that a Gospel for the Jews (Hebrew is a language NOT a people) would not been in a mash of three languages but odds are it would have been in Greek not Hebrew.

 

[dejudge]

........IMHO the early Church fathers heard of a Jewish Gospel and assumed that it was in Hebrew. Back on Planet Reality if there ever had been a Jewish Gospel odds are it would have been written in Greek not Hebrew.

You do have a point that a Gospel for the Jews (Hebrew is a language NOT a people) would not been in a mash of three languages but odds are it would have been in Greek not Hebrew.

The stories of Jesus are likely to be in the language of the country where they originated.

Again, we have writings attributed to Josephus the Jew c 39-100 CE where he admitted he composed "War of the Jews" in the "language of our country" that is of the language of the Jews.

Preface to "War of the Jews"

......while some men who were not concerned in the affairs themselves have gotten together vain and contradictory stories by hearsay, and have written them down after a sophistical manner; and while those that were there present have given false accounts of things, and this either out of a humor of flattery to the Romans, or of hatred towards the Jews; and while their writings contain sometimes accusations, and sometimes encomiums, but no where the accurate truth of the facts; I have proposed to myself, for the sake of such as live under the government of the Romans, to translate those books into the Greek tongue, which I formerly composed in the language of our country, and sent to the Upper Barbarians...

We also have the Mishnah of the Talmud which was composed in the Hebrew language c 200 CE.

It would be expected that if the stories of Jesus originated in Judea since the 1st century that they would have been written originally in the language of the Jews.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talmud

The Talmud has two components. The first part is the Mishnah (Hebrew: משנה, c. 200 CE), the written compendium of Rabbinic Judaism's Oral Torah (Torah meaning "Instruction", "Teaching" in Hebrew). The second part is the Gemara (c. 500 CE), an elucidation of the Mishnah and related Tannaitic writings that often ventures onto other subjects and expounds broadly on the Hebrew Bible. The term Talmud can be used to mean either the Gemara alone, or the Mishnah and Gemara as printed together.

The whole Talmud consists of 63 tractates, and in standard print is over 6,200 pages long. It is written in Tannaitic Hebrew and Aramaic. The Talmud contains the teachings and opinions of thousands of rabbis on a variety of subjects, including Halakha (law), Jewish ethics, philosophy, customs, history, lore and many other topics. The Talmud is the basis for all codes of Jewish law and is much quoted in rabbinic literature.

It is clear that up to the 3rd century, Hebrew language was still used as is evident in the Talmud.

 

[JaysonR]

Maximara,

I'm not entirely certain why I've earned your snide approach, but the answer to your concerns is sufficiently summarized in the opening paragraphs of Wikipedia:

Hebrew had ceased to be an everyday spoken language by around 200 CE, and survived into the medieval period only as the language of Jewish liturgy and rabbinic literature.

To be more specific with examples; there's the Dead Sea Scrolls which are quite heavily in Hebrew and stretch into the 1st c CE.

There's also multiple early apologists citing having seen Hebraic texts in the ownership of Hebrew peoples.

For example: Eusebius writes:
And among these some have placed also the Gospel according to the Hebrews, with which those of the Hebrews that have accepted Christ are especially delighted. And all these may be reckoned among the disputed books.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antilegomena
http://www.newadvent.org/fathers/250103.htm

And this was not a mistake of them hearing of a gospel and assuming that it was Hebrew for, as Eusebius writes:
And he (Hegesippus) wrote of many other matters, which we have in part already mentioned, introducing the accounts in their appropriate places. And from the Syriac Gospel according to the Hebrews he quotes some passages in the Hebrew tongue, showing that he was a convert from the Hebrews, and he mentions other matters as taken from the unwritten tradition of the Jews.
http://www.newadvent.org/fathers/250104.htm

If this had been written by a Hebrew as sacred text akin to the Law, then it would be in the Hebrew language.
If they did not consider it sacred as the Law, but just informative; then they may not have written in Hebrew.


Also; "Hebrew" is a people and a language.
"Jew" is a particular class of Hebrew; so is, in fact, Israelite (at a point in history one meant "North" and the other meant "South" - as in "Kingdom of Israel" and "Kingdom of Judah").
Samaritans are Hebrews as well.
For a further elaboration on the Hebrew peoples, see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hebrews.

Since I have no way of knowing if a given individual was a Jew or not who may or may not have written a text, Hebrew is more appropriate when considering if they were of that ethnic grouping.

"Hebrew" is somewhat similar to the use of "Native American".

 

[maximara]

Maximara,

I'm not entirely certain why I've earned your snide approach, but the answer to your concerns is sufficiently summarized in the opening paragraphs of Wikipedia:

Wikipedia Rule number 1: Wikipedia is only as good as its sources

Wikipedia Rule number 2: When something doesn't have a reference be very leery of using it as fact

To be more specific with examples; there's the Dead Sea Scrolls which are quite heavily in Hebrew and stretch into the 1st c CE.

The Dead Sea scrolls are a mixture of Hebrew, Aramaic, Greek, and Nabataean. The Vatican still uses Latin in both written and oral form ...that doesn't change the fact Latin is a dead language.

 

[JaysonR]

I only used Wikipedia for simplicity to show that the subject of the matter is a surface level of knowledge. I did not employ Wikipedia as a resting source.
I cited other matters beyond that as examples of how we know this.
Yes the DSS has many languages in it - aside from what you mentioned, there's also Latin and Arabic.
Almost the entire Hebrew Bible is preserved in the DSS in Hebrew, following this form, Aramaic is the common language which accounts for texts.
Koine Greek does appear, but in far less volume than the previous two by massive volume.
The first two account for a few thousand fragments and finds, while the latter sums to just 29 fragments - almost all of which are from one cave, and most cannot be identified as to their textual placement or value.


I am not asserting that Hebrew peoples of the era preferred the Hebrew language for daily life (this would be unlikely); only that, as is mentioned by Judaic tradition as well as early Church apologists, that their liturgy and texts which they held as sacred as the Law (as a Jewish Christian may very well hold) would be in the Hebrew language.
Even after this relaxed some in the European Yiddish years, the name of their deity was still written in Hebrew.

At the very least, it would be in Aramaic; not Latin, Koine Greek and Aramaic intermixed.

That said, the work shows clear understanding of Hebraic grammar as the entire text is produced using grammar that works without error in Hebrew, but is absolutely terrible in Greek.
Especially considering the time period, and what we are talking about currently of the Hebrew language not being a common form for writing, this grammatical production is unlikely an accident by some Hebrew hand who just couldn't get a handle on the Greek grammatical form.

Instead, this has the impression of being very specifically accomplished in hybrid.
To what end? I cannot answer.

Could it have been a Hebrew hand? I can't directly rule that out, but it would be an odd choice by custom and culture for this to be done by a Hebrew hand.

 

[maximara]

(snipped from space)
At the very least, it would be in Aramaic; not Latin, Koine Greek and Aramaic intermixed.

That said, the work shows clear understanding of Hebraic grammar as the entire text is produced using grammar that works without error in Hebrew, but is absolutely terrible in Greek.
Especially considering the time period, and what we are talking about currently of the Hebrew language not being a common form for writing, this grammatical production is unlikely an accident by some Hebrew hand who just couldn't get a handle on the Greek grammatical form.

Instead, this has the impression of being very specifically accomplished in hybrid.
To what end? I cannot answer.

Could it have been a Hebrew hand? I can't directly rule that out, but it would be an odd choice by custom and culture for this to be done by a Hebrew hand.

If you look at "Mark" as an editor rather then a writer I think things make more sense. An editor combining several stories in several different languages would have the kind of fragmented aspect we have in the Mark Gospel. Given no Church Father so much as quotes from them until the 130s I suspect that the Gospels didn't exist as cohesive works before that time. Rather what you had were fragmentary elements in several different languages.

 

[pakeha]

If you look at "Mark" as an editor rather then a writer I think things make more sense. An editor combining several stories in several different languages would have the kind of fragmented aspect we have in the Mark Gospel. Given no Church Father so much as quotes from them until the 130s I suspect that the Gospels didn't exist as cohesive works before that time. Rather what you had were fragmentary elements in several different languages.

Mark as an editor rather than a writer.
Of course.
Thanks for giving me something to mull over today!

 

[JaysonR]

Mark isn't fragmented, though. It's very uniformed.
John is the one noted for its heavy fragmentation...a reality I very, very much regret experiencing first hand. I hate working in John.
Working in Mark, once you get used to its rhythm, is very relaxing - poetic in fact.
After working in Mark, I actually wrote a poem using the style of pattern because it is so regular and pleasing (in the Greek, that is).

 

[pakeha]

Hmmm.
Mark as an early Christian Somerset Maugham, perhaps?

 

[JaysonR]

Quite, which is why Mark is quite unlike the other three.
It does not even have the same narrative, really, as the others.
It shares sections, yes, but not the narrative.
You can nearly place Matthew next to the legend of Zorester and find a very compelling cause for suspecting influence, but we could not come even close to that in Mark.

Mark appears to favor form over narration; something none of the other three do.

 

[dejudge]

Quite, which is why Mark is quite unlike the other three.
It does not even have the same narrative, really, as the others.
It shares sections, yes, but not the narrative.
You can nearly place Matthew next to the legend of Zorester and find a very compelling cause for suspecting influence, but we could not come even close to that in Mark.

Mark appears to favor form over narration; something none of the other three do.

Please, you are not making much sense.

Anyone who examines the Canonised Gospels will easily see the Synoptics [gMark, gMatthew and gLuke] have similar narratives.

The themes, miracles, teachings and chronology in gMatthew, gMark and gLuke are similar but NOT gJohn.

gMatthew is almost identical to gMark from the baptism to the resurrection and gLuke is similar to gMatthew and gMark.

It is gJohn that does NOT have the same narrative as the Synoptics.

In fact, gJohn's narrative is virtually unattested in the NT.

 

[proudfootz]

Mark as an editor rather than a writer.
Of course.
Thanks for giving me something to mull over today!

One of the striking things that has been pointed out about the gospel literature is the highly sophisticated techniques used.

In this talk Dr Carrier (beginning about 26:30) explains the 'ring structure' (and also Chiasmus and Inclusio) as used in the gospel narratives:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MclBbZUFSag

The episodes in the story are 'paired' so that if it were a poem the rhyme scheme would look like this:

A
B
C
D
E
E
D
C
B
A

From what I understand Shakespeare uses the same sorts of schemes to order the material he is working with to highlight certain themes and scenes.

 

[dejudge]

The short and long gMark recovered in Codices are probably the most significant writings in the NT Canon because they show how the Jesus story was ALTERED.

The Gospel was CHANGED.

The earliest Gospel in the Canon, in the short gMark, was that the Kingdom of God was imminent.

The ALTERED Gospel, the MUTILATED Gospel, was that Jesus, the Son of God, was SACRIFICIED for the sins of mankind and was raised from the dead after he was Killed by the Jews.

See gJohn and the entire Pauline Corpus.

The author of the short gMark wrote a story to depict the Jews as an evil wicked people and that even the supposed disciples of Jesus, the Son of God, did not believe in him after he made the blind see, the deaf hear, the dumb talk and brought the dead back to life.

An examination of the short gMark shows that the Jesus character has NO interest in teaching the multitude.

The Jesus of the short gMark deliberately spoke in parables and not even his supposed disciples understood until he explained them.

Amazingly, the Jesus of the short gMark, [also in the Synoptics] does NOT tell his own disciples he was the Christ.

Jesus of Nazareth ASKED his DISCIPLES who he was.

Sinaiticus short gMark 8

27 And Jesus and his disciples went forth into the villages of Caesarea Philippi; and on the way he asked his disciples, saying to them: Who do men say that I am?

8:28 They answered him, saying: John the Baptist, and others, Elijah, but others, One of the prophets.

29 And he asked them: But you, who say you that I am? Peter answering said to him: Thou art the Christ.

30 And he charged them to tell no one concerning him.

The Jesus character in the short gMark story is NOT the founder of a new religion.

In the short gMark the populace believes Jesus was just one of the Jewish prophets.

But, that is exactly what the short gMark story is about.

The Jews delivered up Jesus to be killed because they did NOT believe he was the Son of God.

After Jesus is arrested in the short gMark, his own selected disciples either betrayed, abandoned or denied him and he [Jesus] is REJECTED as a blasphemer by the populace and then killed.

People in antiquity who believed the story of the short gMark were called Christians.

The story that the Jews killed Jesus was invented AFTER the Fall of the Jewish Temple c 70 CE.

See writings attributed to Aristides, Justin Martyr, Origen, Irenaeus, Lactantius, Tertullian, Hippolytus, Chrysostom, Eusebius and others.

Origen's "Against Celsus 2.8

.....the Jews will not only suffer more than others in that judgment which is believed to impend over the world, but have even already endured such sufferings.

For what nation is an exile from their own metropolis, and from the place sacred to the worship of their fathers, save the Jews alone?

And these calamities they have suffered, because they were a most wicked nation, which, although guilty of many other sins, yet has been punished so severely for none, as for those that were committed against our Jesus.

The Jesus story and cult originated AFTER the Fall of the Jewish Temple c 70 CE which makes the Entire NT Canon historically bogus.

 

[maximara]

No, it is not consistent with someone copying Hebrew sermons into Greek.
It is more like someone versed in Japanese and the poetic nuances of traditional Haiku writing in English but taking the care to preserve the Haiku format and poetics as it would appear in Japanese, but instead rendering it in English - thereby causing the English to appear awkward, uniformly poor in grammar and non-poetic.

Here are two examples of this using German in English if it will help those trying to get a handle on what JaysonR is saying:

I threw myself down the stairs a bucket of water.

"This account of you we have from all quarters received."

Note the awkward structure of the English in both cases (especially in the first). Now imagine an entire story written that way. This is what is being talked about.

 

[dejudge]

Here are two examples of this using German in English if it will help those trying to get a handle on what JaysonR is saying:

I threw myself down the stairs a bucket of water.

"This account of you we have from all quarters received."

Note the awkward structure of the English in both cases (especially in the first). Now imagine an entire story written that way. This is what is being talked about.

Your post has made it worse. The passages in English have lost its poetic structure.

It would appear JaysonR is confused. At one time he says Hebraic tonality in Greek would be utterly confusing to Rome and at another time he claims gMark in Greek is very pleasing.

.....The point about the Hebraic tonality is to show that this text would be utterly confusing to Rome, or at the least, its articulation would be mostly missed.

.....Working in Mark, once you get used to its rhythm, is very relaxing - poetic in fact.
After working in Mark, I actually wrote a poem using the style of pattern because it is so regular and pleasing (in the Greek, that is).

And then he claims the narrative in gMark is different to the other Gospels.

Quite, which is why Mark is quite unlike the other three.
It does not even have the same narrative, really, as the others.

Surely, any one who has read the Synoptics would easily recognize the similarities of the short gMark, the long gMark, gMatthew and gLuke.

 

[pakeha]

[ . . .] In the short gMark the populace believes Jesus was just one of the Jewish prophets.

But, that is exactly what the short gMark story is about.

The Jews delivered up Jesus to be killed because they did NOT believe he was the Son of God. [ . . . ]

I'd be interested in your understanding of why they involved the Romans in this execution.

[ . . .]"This account of you we have from all quarters received." [ . . .]

A Scandal in Bohemia for the win!

 

[maximara]

Your post has made it worse. The passages in English have lost its poetic structure.

No, it is not consistent with someone copying Hebrew sermons into Greek.
It is more like someone versed in Japanese and the poetic nuances of traditional Haiku writing in English but taking the care to preserve the Haiku format and poetics as it would appear in Japanese, but instead rendering it in English - thereby causing the English to appear awkward, uniformly poor in grammar and non-poetic.

Which was JaysonR's whole point. I might add that English does NOT have a uniform "poetic structure". As Moviebob correctly points out in his review of Disney's A Christmas Carol Late Victorian Century English is vastly different not only in words but grammar, syntax, and rhythm then any form of English spoken today...nearly to the point it is alien. And then there is the difference between British and US English.

Here is an example from other of Dicken's works: "Ours was the marsh country, down by the river, within, as the river wound, twenty miles of the sea. My first most vivid and broad impression of the identity of things, seems to me to have been gained on a memorable raw afternoon towards evening."

Now compare that to an American work of the 1930s: "The other three stared at him sympathetically—Putz, the engineer, Leroy, the biologist, and Harrison, the astronomer and captain of the expedition. Dick Jarvis was chemist of the famous crew, the Ares expedition, first human beings to set foot on the mysterious neighbor of the earth, the planet Mars."

 

[dejudge]

I'd be interested in your understanding of why they involved the Romans in this execution.

The answer is documented in the recovered NT Codices. The authors of the Myth Fables called Gospels wanted to show that the Romans found NO fault with Jesus the Son of God and that the crucifixion of the Son of God was caused by the Jews.


Mark 15:13-14 KJV

And they cried out again, Crucify him.

Then Pilate said unto them, Why, what evil hath he done ? And they cried out the more exceedingly, Crucify him.

Matthew 27.24 KJV

When Pilate saw that he could prevail nothing, but that rather a tumult was made , he took water, and washed his hands before the multitude, saying , I am innocent of the blood of this just person: see ye to it.

Luke 23:4 KJV

Then said Pilate to the chief priests and to the people, I find no fault in this man.

John 19:4 KJV

Pilate therefore went forth again, and saith unto them, Behold, I bring him forth to you, that ye may know that I find no fault in him.

It must also be noted that when Jesus admitted he was the Son of God in gMark he was found guilty of death for Blasphemy by the Sanhedrin.

However, a centurion admitted in gMark and gMatthew that Jesus was TRULY the Son of God.


Matthew 27:54 KJV

Now when the centurion, and they that were with him, watching Jesus, saw the earthquake, and those things that were done , they feared greatly, saying , Truly this was the Son of God.

Mark 15:39 KJV

And when the centurion, which stood over against him, saw that he so cried out , and gave up the ghost , he said , Truly this man was the Son of God.

The Fables called Gospels are extremely easy to understand because of the Massive abundance of writings of antiquity.

After the Jewish Temple fell c 70 CE, stories were INVENTED that the wicked Jews had killed the Son of their own God.

People who believed the stories that the Jews killed the Son of their own God were called Christians.


This is a partial list of Christian writers who claimed the Jews Killed the Son of God from the 2nd -5th century.

1. Aristides' Apology

2. Justin's "Dialogue with Trypho,

3. Irenaeus' "Against Heresies",

4. Tertullian's "Answer to the Jews",

5. Origen's "Against Celsus",

5. Hippolytus' "Treatise Against the Jews",

6. Lactantius' "On How the Persecutors Died",

7. Acts of the Apostles,

8. The Pauline Corpus,

9. Eusebius' "Proof of the Gospel"

10. Chrysostom's "Against the Jews"

 

[JaysonR]

Maximara,

It's actually worse than that, if the point that was trying to be made was that the texts are now in English.

This:
It is more like someone versed in Japanese and the poetic nuances of traditional Haiku writing in English but taking the care to preserve the Haiku format and poetics as it would appear in Japanese, but instead rendering it in English - thereby causing the English to appear awkward, uniformly poor in grammar and non-poetic.
...would bring us up to the Greek.

To simulate the Greek (mostly) compilation going into English:

Then we would take that English rendering of the Haiku and translate it into French.

That would then bring us into a simulation of what Mark has gone through in linguistic juggling.

Mark is a complicated text to approach critically.