What counts as a historical Jesus?

[grahbudd]

I'd think that, if this is the case, then there's a good chance that Q was a fabrication or fraud. If the first writing about this tradition was made by a true believer, I'd bet on a flesh-and-blood guru, though still completely alien to the Jesus we know.

How can a set of sayings (largely) be a fabrication or fraud? I mean, everyone agrees that that some one or some people made them up originally! Surely what you mean to say is that they have been deliberately or accidentally misattributed. But in that case, it's pretty odd that there's no trace of who did it, given that these are quite compelling and pregnant aphorisms...

 

[SpuriusMaximus]

How would you know if they've been mis-attributed or not?

I hope you're not going to come up with the stuff about how people would want those remembered in their names, because we know that mis-attributing your stuff to someone else was actually widely practiced.

 

[grahbudd]

How would you know if they've been mis-attributed or not?

I hope you're not going to come up with the stuff about how people would want those remembered in their names, because we know that mis-attributing your stuff to someone else was actually widely practiced.

Well one thing we know is that by the 40s they had been collected; they were transmitted orally (the result of Form criticism) and that à group of people therefore took à lot of trouble to remember them and write them down.

 

[SpuriusMaximus]

I'd think that, if this is the case, then there's a good chance that Q was a fabrication or fraud. If the first writing about this tradition was made by a true believer, I'd bet on a flesh-and-blood guru, though still completely alien to the Jesus we know.

Well, actually, if I had to take a bet, I'd bet on several different people coming up with different smart aphorisms independently. As I was saying, we have at least 3 different collections, between Q, Thomas and the stuff that Papias got from various churches.

Basically a lot of proto-Catholic priests were putting their own junk in Jesus's mouth, like he was a choir boy

Remember that the pastorals are late forgeries, so there wasn't exactly much around to say that you should listen to your bishop tell you how to live your life, or to what extent. Indeed, taking the original Paul letters at face value, nothing except accepting Jesus mattered at all. Even the good behaviour rules in the OT, according to Paul, just make you aware you're a sinner and deserving Hell, but ultimately irrelevant because even keeping the Law doesn't save you. Only accepting Jesus does.

Paul also seems to have been more immediately apocalyptic, and, basically, doesn't even see much use in marrying, church hierarchies, rules other than basically "don't hallucinate anything contradicting MY hallucinations", or whatever else. The divine crap is going to hit the fan any day now, so, you know, just put your life in order and wait for it. Maybe get others to accept Jesus too while you're at it, but that's it.

So now try to imagine being a local church leader after Paul croaks. He left you in kinda the same position as being the alpha in a cat colony: doesn't mean anyone must listen to you. He forgot to give you any authority, and you can't even tell them to do any good stuff from the OT, because really it doesn't matter any more, and everyone was saved by Jesus from the "curse" that are the OT rules. In fact, Jesus died in vain if anyone still needs to obey the OT.

So how do you get them to do what you say? Even assuming you're not a malicious guy, out to exploit the sheep for your own profit, you still have to have some argument for why they should do X when some other BS-er says they should do Y instead?

Doesn't it start to sound like "Jesus said to do X" might just hit the spot there?

 

[SpuriusMaximus]

Well one thing we know is that by the 40s they had been collected; they were transmitted orally (the result of Form criticism) and that à group of people therefore took à lot of trouble to remember them and write them down.

Err, no, not really. There is a lot of speculation about when they might have been collected, but it mostly boils down to wild confabulation and completely unsupported assumptions. Occasionally even wrong assumptions.

Essentially the BS Bingo moved from pushing the gospels that early, to pushing a document nobody actually ever seen that early, and based on speculating on what we don't actually have.

 

[grahbudd]

Err, no, not really. There is a lot of speculation about when they might have been collected, but it mostly boils down to wild confabulation and completely unsupported assumptions. Occasionally even wrong assumptions.

Essentially the BS Bingo moved from pushing the gospels that early, to pushing a document nobody actually ever seen that early, and based on speculating on what we don't actually have.

We know that Paul had access to such à collection, one can see this by the way he quotes them.

Furthermore, the collection was not in general circulation - it only appears in Christian literature. So its not like a set of general proverbs.

 

[grahbudd]

Well, actually, if I had to take a bet, I'd bet on several different people coming up with different smart aphorisms independently. As I was saying, we have at least 3 different collections, between Q, Thomas and the stuff that Papias got from various churches.

Basically a lot of proto-Catholic priests were putting their own junk in Jesus's mouth, like he was a choir boy

Remember that the pastorals are late forgeries, so there wasn't exactly much around to say that you should listen to your bishop tell you how to live your life, or to what extent. Indeed, taking the original Paul letters at face value, nothing except accepting Jesus mattered at all. Even the good behaviour rules in the OT, according to Paul, just make you aware you're a sinner and deserving Hell, but ultimately irrelevant because even keeping the Law doesn't save you. Only accepting Jesus does.

Paul also seems to have been more immediately apocalyptic, and, basically, doesn't even see much use in marrying, church hierarchies, rules other than basically "don't hallucinate anything contradicting MY hallucinations", or whatever else. The divine crap is going to hit the fan any day now, so, you know, just put your life in order and wait for it. Maybe get others to accept Jesus too while you're at it, but that's it.

So now try to imagine being a local church leader after Paul croaks. He left you in kinda the same position as being the alpha in a cat colony: doesn't mean anyone must listen to you. He forgot to give you any authority, and you can't even tell them to do any good stuff from the OT, because really it doesn't matter any more, and everyone was saved by Jesus from the "curse" that are the OT rules. In fact, Jesus died in vain if anyone still needs to obey the OT.

So how do you get them to do what you say? Even assuming you're not a malicious guy, out to exploit the sheep for your own profit, you still have to have some argument for why they should do X when some other BS-er says they should do Y instead?

Doesn't it start to sound like "Jesus said to do X" might just hit the spot there?

For à start, you don't have any idea when Thomas was written. Theres evidence that its post-synoptic and middle second century.

Second, this ignores the complex way in which Paul deals with the Jesus aphorisms such as about marriage and missionaries.

Third, Paul's letters are full of practical advice such as about the lords supper.

 

[grahbudd]

PS i would suggest reading some of the post-Sanders literature on Paul before describing so confidentally what his relationship to the Law was! That's sooo Reformation a view of such a Jewish figure as Paul!

 

[Greediguts]

Again, that's a claim that comes from one highly-biased religious document, and they did have one of those "prophecies" that said someone else will pave the way for the messiah. Plus, generally, if you wanted to at least try to sell that snake-oil to more Jews, trying to connect it to a recent super-star preacher is exactly what you'd expect a snake-oil peddler to do. Doubly so when they inherited a baptism ritual from Paul anyway, so it's not like connecting it to JTB comes out of nowhere.

There is also no real evidence that there was any rivalry, as opposed to just being Mark's getting the timeline wrong for his made-up fiction. That's just confabulating.

The existence and writings of the Mandaeans do seem to point to some sort of tradition of conflict between the groups. The Mandaeans view Jesus as a false prophet who twisted the teachings of John the Baptist. Their early history is shrouded but more scholars and historians are being to take notice of them (especially as more immigrate to America). Here is a site talking about the translation of the Mandaic Book of John into English for the first time.

 

[SpuriusMaximus]

We know that Paul had access to such à collection, one can see this by the way he quotes them.

Except for the facts that

A) actually he doesn't quote any actual saying of Jesus. In fact the only substantial thing he ever says that Jesus did is the last supper, which is a different kind of story than the pericopes in Q. So, seriously, if you think you can know that Paul read such a collection, when there is zero evidence for it, you really should have a go for Randi's million. You seem qualified for that

(Let me guess, now you're going to say "according to scripture" is meaning according to something like Q, even though everything he introduces that way is from OT, and nothing he applies it to even looks like a sayings story. Well, nah, you seem more informed than that.)

B) causality kinda flows the other way. Stuff in the gospels also found in Paul, the most parsimonious explanation is that it does come from Paul. We don't really need an earlier source that is in both Paul and the Gospels.

C) even if I were to grant that there were such sayings floating around, how do you know that it's Q? After all, the existence of magic in novels from iron age, doesn't mean that Harry Potter is an ancient text. Just because SOMETHING like that might have existed in the 40's (although there is no evidence for that) doesn't mean that Q is from the same decade.

Furthermore, the collection was not in general circulation - it only appears in Christian literature. So its not like a set of general proverbs.

Considering how overactive Xianity was in destroying anything that contradicts their version, I think we can't be all that sure. I'm pretty sure that a document that says stuff from the NT was actually said by Mithras, wouldn't quite get copied

But more importantly, even if I'm to grant that, that still doesn't say anything about them being from the 40's, or pointing at a historical Jesus. It could just as well something that wasn't even started until the 70's as an addendum to the Jesus described in Mark. Or whatever.

 

[SpuriusMaximus]

Oh, please do. This is a fascinating subject and it's hard to reach any conclusion about it.

Well, my opinions on the topic have been said to death already. But as a summary

1. Paul. He could have been:

A) actually making stuff up, as you say. It's not like someone could check whether the vision actually existed or not, and he does claim point-blank that he performs miracles. Unless he's delusional, he's a con-man. There aren't any other two versions for someone to tell people, basically, "but you saw me do miracles." And the incentive certainly is there too.

B) he could be talking about something else than we think. A big problem with reading Paul is that most people seem unable to put away the things they know from other sources. E.g., they read "revelation" and think "ah-ha, his vision", because they've read Acts too. E.g., they read "apostle" and think "ah-ha, one of those 12 guys who hung out with Jesus for a year." E.g., they read "gospel" and think, "ah-ha, coherent narrative of Jesus's life and deeds." But Paul generally doesn't say any of that. It's people filling in those blanks with something that COULD be what Paul meant in the first place, but also COULD be something completely different. In fact, Paul could be spinning in his grave so hard over what the gospel writers did with his message, that if we could wrap him in copper wire and put a magnet on his tomb, we'd have free energy for ever

C) Paul could be simply paranoid schizophrenic. There's again the fact that he may actually think he is doing miracles. There is the fact that taken literally his epistles describe several schizophrenia delusions, including referential and textbook Cotard. There's the fact that he didn't have just one hallucination, but communicated with Jesus and got answers afterwards, and has another revelation later and acts on it. There's the fact that his pattern of writing a passionate 20 page letter about Jesus, yet at the same time showing no interest whatsoever in learning or sharing almost anything about Jesus, is the kind of thing that is occasionally seen in paranoid schizophrenics. Etc. So he could actually be a very honest guy, and honestly conveying what the voices in his head were telling him, but, you know, you'd have to be even crazier to take the hallucinations of a crazy guy as evidence anyway


2. Q. Ah, Q. Q is a proposed source for the stuff that is in both Matthew and Luke, but not in Mark. Both copied almost word for word from Mark, and Luke didn't even change the order much (Matthew did occasionally rearrange stuff), so when other stories appear almost word for word in both, well, you know, it's highly improbable that something like that would happen by sheer random chance. So some smart people came up with the idea that both used a source -- in German "Quelle" -- hence, named Q.

Nobody actually saw Q, though. (Dan Brown seemed to think the Vatican has it, but, heh, the Vatican would probably sell half their souls for something like that.)

For the same reason that Luke seems to just copy in order, we generally take the order in Luke as PROBABLY the order in whatever form Q had. So when you see people saying something about chapter and verse number from Q, it means that verse and chapter from Luke. It's really that equivalent. You know, in case you run into something like that.

Now before I get any further, you have to understand that we can't reconstruct the whole Q. Nobody saw it, nobody knows even how long it is, etc. ALL we can say is that a couple of stories from both Matthew and Luke are from that. We don't know what else was in there. We don't know if it was supposed to be a whole gospel as we understand that today (i.e., a narrative about Jesus's life), or used in parallel with a real gospel. Etc. So all I'm about to say from this point is actually only what can be said about the pieces we have, not about the whole Q. And that can make a whole lot of difference.

So for a start, it seems to be a collection of standalone sayings, sorta like the Gospel Of Thomas or on the other side of the globe, the Analects of Confucius. Jesus doesn't enact elaborate symbolic actions like in Mark for example, but just delivers some smart line and that's it. Actually unlike Confucius or Thomas, it is a bit different in that it doesn't just start with "Jesus said X" or "Peter asked Y, and Jesus answered Z". It can set the stage a bit for Black Hole Sue... err... Jesus to deliver his punchline. But at the end of the day, that was the whole payload, really.

Second, there seems to be no birth or resurrection narrative in Q. Or at least the pieces we have, well, they don't cover that. It could be a pretty big thing IF it was a full gospel, AND had no resurrection, well, that would be kinda significant. Unfortunately we can't really tell either of the two, and anyone who claims otherwise is pretty much just extrapolating way more than supportable.

Third, it seems to have a more Galilean flavour. The stage for those smart lines Jesus says is generally set in the more rural Galilee. Again, it's unclear if the whole Q is like that, in which case maybe it was collected in Galilee, or just Luke and Matthew simply chose a more Galilee-centric set to counter-balance the more Judah-centric stuff in Mark. If I wanted to have a messiah that represents ALL Jews, I'd want to balance it like that too. But ok, we don't know what's in the rest of it, if anything at all, so let's say it's got a more Galilean theme.

Fourth, it seems to be MUCH less about an imminent apocalypse. Now ASSUMING that it was used as an independent gospel, AND that indeed the rest of it wasn't apocalyptic either, then you can argue all sorts of nonsense about it. Like one such claim I've seen was that it must be earlier than Paul, because obviously the apocalyptic twist came later. Never mind that in stuff like the DSS we see an apocalyptic tradition long before Jesus was even born, or that all along what they expected the messiah to do was start the messianic age, i.e., the end times. Again, usually such guesses are really unsupportable, and again one can't really support either of those two initial assumptions either.

Fifth, we don't really know anything about what form it was in, who wrote it, or indeed if it even was in written form at all, when, etc. There is a lot of postulating, implicitly or explicitly, but as I was saying, usually on fundamentally unsound premises and lots of confabulation. That is, if it's even supported at all. A lot of people just start from stating what it was, when it was, and how authoritative it was, and skip that boring part of actually supporting any of that.

But anyway, in case you didn't know some of that, that's Q.

3. Mark. Well, Mark itself is a big question mark. Again, there is a lot of stuff taken for granted about it, but actually a lot less that can be actually supported.

For a start, the date. Traditionally it was pushed to be even before Paul, like the other gospels, but then someone noticed that it kinda talks about the destruction of the temple, so, you know, unless Mark was clairvoyant, it's unlikely it was actually written before 70 CE. (Almost all good prophecies are written after the fact) So then basically it all was moved to, "ok, ok, then it was written in the 70's". But that's actually only one end of the interval, and it's kinda not good historiography to do that. Actually Mark could be anywhere between the 70's and the 130's, assuming that Marcion's gospel is a derivative of Mark. So, you know, the actual supportable dating is a much larger interval.

Mark was actually traditionally thought to be the last, or at least third gospel written, and be basically a summary of Matthew and Luke. Well, it's still impossible to fully disprove that. It could be that Luke actually copied and rearranged Matthew, and some word group concordances kinda weakly point that way, and then Mark just chucked away all the fluff that wasn't in both gospels. Well, it could be, but almost nobody takes it seriously any more. The far more plausible version is that Mark came first and Matthew and Luke copied from it.

Mark is also... weird. THE number one theme in it is reversal of expectations, i.e., literally irony, and a general theme of failure. This is also one reason to make it be right after the destruction of the temple, which Mark would take as THE apocalypse, but as I was saying, we don't really know that. I mean, 135 was just as big a catastrophe, for example. But a possibility that some people are starting to at least consider is that MAYBE Mark wasn't trying to write a gospel after all. Maybe Mark is writing a cryptic work of satire at the messianic expectations which had just failed. Sorta like how "The Prince" turns out to be satire, not actual advice to princes on how to be a ruthless power-hungry son-of-a-witch.

(And if that's the case, now that's probably another guy spinning in his grave)

Mark is also writing something that doesn't look like a collection of independent stories about Jesus, but a highly coherent story, with a good structure and masterful use of foreshadow and layered metaphors. It also may have parallels to Homer. I.e., IMHO probably he wasn't asking any witnesses, but just writing the story from scratch.

The fact that he makes a complete hash of the geography, customs, religion, etc, and seems oblivious to language nuances (although some stuff does seem to come from a translation from Hebrew or Aramaic to Greek), also isn't exactly pointing at his getting the story from witnesses from Palestine. There's stuff that not many people from the area could be confused about, yet Mark makes a hash of it anyway. So, yeah, that stuff ain't coming from peasants and fishermen from Palestine, but from a highly skilled, highly educated Greek-speaking author.

Now why would a Christian just make up the story of Jesus instead of wanting to know what actually happened? Well, for a start, not all Christians are honest, and not all Christians are sane. But there is also the explanation that MAYBE he's actually writing symbolic stuff. In fact he even has Jesus say point blank that he speaks in parables so the uninitiated won't understand what it's about. So Mark may actually be writing about some stuff he believed, but is basically writing a symbolic version of it. Sorta like when Aesop tells you about a mouse talking to a lion, he's not exactly trying to tell you about a lion and a mouse, if you get my drift.

Strangely enough, Mark's Jesus is also a hush-hush secret ops Jesus. He does miracles all over the place, but tells people to not tell anyone about it, and they don't. He sends his apostles to do miracles all over the place, but tell people to not tell anyone about it, and they don't. And it culminates in his empty tomb and an angel telling the women to tell people about it, except they still don't, and the story ends there. In fact, you could make a Mark drinking game. You take a shot of tequila every time Jesus says to keep him a secret, and then go get your stomach pumped or you might die

So basically Mark is a literal conspiracy theory: he has thousands of uncoordinated people keeping a secret, even though it's against their own best interest to do so. You'd think if they know Jesus is real, and they know it, they'd at least want their friends, parents, children, brothers, etc, to profit from that knowledge and go to heaven. But no, TEH JOOS don't tell anyone about Jesus, because he told them not to. Go figure.

Why would Mark do that? Well, no idea. Maybe it's just reminding the initiates to not go blather about what it really means. Or maybe he knows he's making up industrial-grade BS, and is afraid people will ask how come nobody heard any of that. Well, he heads that off at the pass by saying up front why they never heard about any of that: the Jews are keeping the secret, that's why. Either case isn't entirely encouraging me to take Mark as actual history.

And so on, and so forth... I really doubt that I could do such a broad topic justice in one message, even if I stayed up the next week writing this.

 

[maximara]

Technically, myth is the wrong word to use anyway (legendary is probably the right one) but I guess that won't hold anyone up here...

No, technically myth is actually the right word to use:

1) "a traditional story, especially one concerning the early history of a people or explaining a natural or social phenomenon, and typically involving supernatural beings or events.

2) a widely held but false belief or idea" (Online Oxford Dictionary)

Supporting references:

Kirk, G.S. Myth: Its Meaning and Functions in Ancient and Other Cultures. Berkeley: Cambridge University Press, 1973.

Kirk, G.S. "On Defining Myths". Sacred Narrative: Readings in the Theory of Myth. Ed. Alan Dundes. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1984. 53-61.


The legendary the stories of King Arthur and Robin Hood are still false--full of impossible or anachronistic elements. So even by the second definition they are still myths.

The classic legend of 'Christopher Columbus sailed west to prove the world was round' is also a myth (widely held but false belief or idea, remember?).


Citing David Strauss and John Fiske, John Remsburg stated in his 1909 book The Christ that there were three kinds of myths: Historical, Philosophical, and Poetical.

A Historical myth is "a real event colored by the light of antiquity, which confounded the human and divine, the natural and the supernatural. The event may be but slightly colored and the narrative essentially true, or it may be distorted and numberless legends attached until but a small residuum of truth remains and the narrative is essentially false. A large portion of ancient history, including the Biblical narratives, is historical myth. The earliest records of all nations and of all religions are more or less mythical."

"A Philosophical myth is an idea clothed in the caress of historical narrative. When a mere idea is personified and presented in the form of a man or a god it is called a pure myth. Many of the gods and heroes of antiquity are pure myths."

"A Poetical myth is a blending of the historical and philosophical, embellished by the creations of the imagination. The poems of Homer and Hesiod, which were the religious text books of the ancient Greeks, and the poetical writings of the Bible, which helped to form and foster the Semitic faiths of Judaism, Christianity, and Mohammedanism, belong to this class."

Remsburg later stated that "(i)t is often difficult, if not impossible, to distinguish a historical from a philosophical myth. Hence the non-agreement of Freethinkers in regard to the nature of the Christ myth. Is Christ a historical or a philosophical myth? Does an analysis of his alleged history disclose the deification of a man, or merely the personification of an idea?"

So myth is technically and emphatically the correct term.

 

[grahbudd]

Except for the facts that

A) actually he doesn't quote any actual saying of Jesus. In fact the only substantial thing he ever says that Jesus did is the last supper, which is a different kind of story than the pericopes in Q. So, seriously, if you think you can know that Paul read such a collection, when there is zero evidence for it, you really should have a go for Randi's million. You seem qualified for that

(Let me guess, now you're going to say "according to scripture" is meaning according to something like Q, even though everything he introduces that way is from OT, and nothing he applies it to even looks like a sayings story. Well, nah, you seem more informed than that.)

B) causality kinda flows the other way. Stuff in the gospels also found in Paul, the most parsimonious explanation is that it does come from Paul. We don't really need an earlier source that is in both Paul and the Gospels.

C) even if I were to grant that there were such sayings floating around, how do you know that it's Q? After all, the existence of magic in novels from iron age, doesn't mean that Harry Potter is an ancient text. Just because SOMETHING like that might have existed in the 40's (although there is no evidence for that) doesn't mean that Q is from the same decade.



Considering how overactive Xianity was in destroying anything that contradicts their version, I think we can't be all that sure. I'm pretty sure that a document that says stuff from the NT was actually said by Mithras, wouldn't quite get copied

But more importantly, even if I'm to grant that, that still doesn't say anything about them being from the 40's, or pointing at a historical Jesus. It could just as well something that wasn't even started until the 70's as an addendum to the Jesus described in Mark. Or whatever.

On Paul's use of a collection of Jesus sayings, see e.g. Koester, Ancient Christian Gospels, or the Dale Allison article I posted about before. As far as I know this is fairly widely accepted?

On Christians wiping out stuff, well ehhhh...we know quite a lot about ancient heresies precisely because Christians *did* copy them (like everything else from the ancient world, basically!).

I didn't say it was Q partly because I think the issue of the source(s) behind the double tradition is more complex than a single Greek document. Christopher Tuckett has written on this.

There is evidence that Mark post dates the q material though, and this revolves around the mark-q overlaps (including the source doublets that I mentioned before!). Incidentally, Paul seems to know at least two of these source doublets,
One about an evil generation demanding signs, and the one about keeping awake.

 

[maximara]

On Paul's use of a collection of Jesus sayings, see e.g. Koester, Ancient Christian Gospels, or the Dale Allison article I posted about before. As far as I know this is fairly widely accepted?

On Christians wiping out stuff, well ehhhh...we know quite a lot about ancient heresies precisely because Christians *did* copy them (like everything else from the ancient world, basically!).

The problem with that coping is that you essentially have the Christians deciding what survives and what becomes mildewed rat food.

To be fair to them, if you have ever watched the "A Matter of Fact" episode of James Burke's The Day the Universe Changed you know the problems Christian copyists were faced with.

The example Burke gives, Sermones Bonventurae (Sermons of St Bonaventure) shows just what kind of mess things were. This book could be

Sermons composed by St Bonaventure of Fidenza

Sermons composed by somebody called Bonaventure

Sermons copied by a Bonaventure

Sermons copied by somebody belonging to church of St. Bonaventure

Sermons preached by a Bonaventure

Sermons once owned by a Bonaventure

Sermons once owned by church of St. Bonaventure

Sermons by various people of whom the first or most important was by somebody called Bonaventure--the rest of the book? No clue.

Now you known why ancient texts are so much of a pain to try and sort out.

 

[SpuriusMaximus]

On Paul's use of a collection of Jesus sayings, see e.g. Koester, Ancient Christian Gospels, or the Dale Allison article I posted about before. As far as I know this is fairly widely accepted?

So is the resurrection for a lot of people, and that's still no reason to accept it.

The fact is that if Paul says something in the 50's or so, and we know they kept and used copies of his letters, and then it appears in something written by a member of a Pauline church some decades later, the most parsimonious assumption is that it does come (directly or indirectly) from Paul. I mean, of course that if someone were trying to write a coherent story about Paul's Jesus, it would reflect their beliefs about Paul's Jesus.

I mean, of course that if someone writes fan-fic about Star Wars they'd use stuff that is in St George Lucas's version as a base. Heck, the Holiday Special even used footage from the real movies. The idea that someone could look at both and say, basically, "see Han Solo says X and Y in both, therefore George Lucas must have had some previous document about Han Solo" is plain old irrational wishful-thinking BS.

Same here. If the gospels WERE an independent document, OK, that would be an explanation. But they aren't. They happen in some gentile church where one way or another the same views that Paul and his church had been doing the rounds for decades. The idea that, basically, "oh noes, they really had documents from before Paul" is plain old unsupportable BS.

And I mean seriously, from the 1977 release of SW episode 4 and present day, there are 35 years. About the same as between Paul and Matthew even in the lowest supportable dating that is pushed for Matthew. So there's a reason I'm using exactly that example. But if I, a self-confessed fan of SW (though probably not half as big as Matthew was a Jesus, as I never wrote a gospel,) quoted some line from Han Solo, like, "Hokey religions and ancient weapons are no match for a good blaster at your side, kid" would you actually think it comes from some older source about Han Solo that our prophet George Lucas (peace be upon him) used too, OR that it does come from George Lucas's movie? Would there be any sane reason to try to push an earlier source of the sayings of Han Solo?

On Christians wiping out stuff, well ehhhh...we know quite a lot about ancient heresies precisely because Christians *did* copy them (like everything else from the ancient world, basically!).

Actually, not really. We have a lot of refutations of those heresies, often based on nonsense hearsay and distortions. Actual heretical texts were actually routinely destroyed. In fact, read Justinian's code for example: not only it says that heretical texts should be destroyed, but there's a death penalty for whoever is found owning one.

A lot of documents have been preserved basically because someone turned them into Christian texts. Either they inserted some paragraph in them (a la Testimonium Flavianum) or forged a couple of letters turning an author like Seneca the Younger into some early Christian. THEN you'd get that stuff copied.

But otherwise, in the middle ages, the Church was actively trying to destroy everything else, e.g., by erasing some parchment on the calculation of torsion catapult and "redeeming" it by writing a bible on it. To the extent that in the 11'th and 12'th centuries, much of the reborn interest in ancient science was based on stuff that had been copied by the Persians. Christians had lost most of that stuff.

 

[Belz...]

How can a set of sayings (largely) be a fabrication or fraud? I mean, everyone agrees that that some one or some people made them up originally! Surely what you mean to say is that they have been deliberately or accidentally misattributed. But in that case, it's pretty odd that there's no trace of who did it, given that these are quite compelling and pregnant aphorisms...

No, I mean made up entirely. Why do you think we'd know who made them up, since we don't know who wrote them already, nor do we have, you know, a copy of Q.

 

[Belz...]

Doesn't it start to sound like "Jesus said to do X" might just hit the spot there?

Right. It also leaves us, again, wondering if there was a 'Jesus' at all. If so, who was he, and if not, where does the tradition come from ?

 

[grahbudd]

No, I mean made up entirely. Why do you think we'd know who made them up, since we don't know who wrote them already, nor do we have, you know, a copy of Q.

I didn't say that, I meant: "what does it mean that someone "made them up""? Of course someone made them up. They are sayings. What case are you trying to differentiate here?

 

[Belz...]

We know that Paul had access to such à collection, one can see this by the way he quotes them.

Well, it's like Lincoln said: "Don't believe everything you read in books and on the internet."

There, I just made up a saying about Lincoln. I must have access to a collection of sayings by him.

 

[Belz...]

I didn't say that, I meant: "what does it mean that someone "made them up""? Of course someone made them up. They are sayings. What case are you trying to differentiate here?

I'm sorry, I have no idea what you're saying, as it seems contradictory. Could you rephrase ?