This. It also is consistent with the thesis that Mark was written primarily to support Paul (who was definitely not an eyewitness) in his feuds with those described as Jesus’s brothers regarding the early direction of the church.
In addition to not bothering with the Resurrection, Mark curiously refers to Jesus’s teachings, but rarely describes those teachings themselves! I had never noticed this until I read the book:
There are a bunch of other indicators gMark is not based on Peter’s memoirs, and there is evidence in fact that gMark is strongly anti-Petrine;
gMark nowhere identifies itself as being narrated by Peter, or even connected to Peter in any way.
gMark is written in third person, including all the scenes involving Peter.
gMark is written from the perspective of an omniscient narrator, describing several scenes that Peter couldn’t possibly witness (such as passion in Gethsemane, trial before Sanhedrin, and trial before Pilate). gMark is strongly anti-Petrine. Note that unlike other gospels, Peter is never redeemed in the narrative. There might even be an intentional pun in the parable of the sower, where the case best describing the apostles (were quick to become followers of Jesus, but also quick to abandon him at the first signs of danger) just happens to be called “rocky (petrodes) ground”.
gMark doesn’t include post-resurrection appearances of Jesus, to which Peter (Cephas) was a witness, according to Paul. It’s hard to imagine how Peter could leave that out.
gMark employs complex literary structures which couldn’t possibly result from spontaneous oral narration, starting from the use of chiastic structure (sometimes called Markan sandwiches) but also including intricate allusions to earlier scenes. For example, consider this fragment from the very beginning of the Gospel and the very first scene with Jesus:
he saw the heavens torn apart [schizomenous] and the Spirit [Pneuma] descending like a dove on him. And a voice came from heaven, “You are my Son…”
(Mark 1:10-11)
and compare it with the scene near the very end of the Gospel, and the last scene involving Jesus:
Then Jesus gave a loud cry and breathed his last [exepneusen]. And the curtain of the temple was torn [eschisthe] in two, from top to bottom. Now when the centurion, who stood facing him, saw that in this way he breathed his last, he said, “Truly this man was God’s Son!”
(Mark 15:37-38)
gMark contains several serious geographical errors which are irreconcilable with the idea that the text stems from a Galilean local. For example, to quote from Dykstra’s “Mark, Canonizer of Paul”:
From “the region of Tyre,” Jesus goes “through Sidon” (20 miles north along the coast) “to the sea of Galilee” (the opposite direction from Tyre, about 30 miles southeast) “through the region of the Decapolis” (beyond his destination Galilee by at least 10 miles and extending for about 40 miles farther). A modern U.S. equivalent would be to recount a journey from Los Angeles to Kansas City, first going through Seattle and then going through Miami.
(p. 75)
Similarly, Mark is the first author to call the pretty small lake in Galilee “a sea” (on the subject of Sea of Galilee, see this article).
https://www.reddit.com/r/AcademicBiblical/comments/7tsla5/comment/dtk3znq
Hi @thoughtful,
You might be interested in the following articles:
Why Scholars Doubt the Traditional Authors of the Gospels by Matthew Wade Ferguson. (Ferguson is a Classics Ph.D. student at UC Irvine, whose research focuses on the history, literature, and languages of the Roman Empire during the 1st-2nd centuries A.D.)
The Gospel according to Matthew by the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops. (Note that the article declares that “[t]he ancient tradition that the author was the disciple and apostle of Jesus named Matthew (see Mt 10:3) is untenable” and insists that the gospel was composed after 70 A.D.)
Cheers.
It is interesting to note also that Cameron on the Capturing Christianity podcast, together with @Andrew_Loke accused Paulogia of dishonesty concerning one of Paulogia’s recent videos on the Martyr argument, but Cameron has now retracted that accusation and apologized.
For people who usually spend so much time pointing out the proper context in which to understand the statements of various Christian scholars and apologists, it is ironic that they didn’t do the homework of ensuring they properly understood the context and purpose of the argument Paulogia was making.
It is interesting to note that it is you (and those who like your post) who didn’t do the homework of ensuring that you properly understood the context of purpose of the argument that Paulogia and myself are making. The truth is I did understand Paulogia’s argument and responded to it, but Paulogia took me out of context yet again: See Are Paulogia's Videos Deceptive? Cameron & Dr. Loke Respond - YouTube ; from 37 minutes onwards. More importantly, Paulogia has not yet replied to the 17 objections I raised against his view; see 1:07:45 onwards , and he has not yet confirmed whether he would take part in a written debate with me despite expressing his interest initially.
I would note that the comments on this latest video suggest that it is you who was being deceptive:
I find it to be problematic that it appear you did not provide Paulogias original video to the 3 scholars you asked for their input from. Only providing the section from your video absent the context from Paulogias video gives a larger appearance of dishonesty.Yeah the first historian guy that said he was being misrepresented then went onto make Paulogias point VERBATIM in the email. That's when I stopped watching because I only knew it was going to be more of a clown show from here on out.
Might I suggest that Alison only said he was being misrepresented based on the framing of him being given the CC video rather than Paulogia's original video? Everything in his emails suggest that he's concerned that maybe you and Dr. Loke need to be reminded that there is very little we can say about the 500. He emphasizes that claiming anything about the Corinthians interaction with the 500 is speculation without evidence, and that there is very little we can say, since we only have the single sentence from Paul, that is all.
I am however unwilling to expose myself to an hour and twenty minutes of your rapid-fire rambling to find out for myself (the short excepts of you on Paulogia’s last video were irritating enough). This is particularly so given that, by my calculation, I would have to watch a whopping six hours of this saga, to get your full argument (Paulogia on the other hand has contributed a svelte 80 minutes).
Has it occured to you that the reason that Paulogia has failed to respond to your “17 objections” might be exhaustion, and/or intimidation by the logistical mountain of poring through this much video to document his response?
I’d suggest that you either (i) plan your responses in advance (and learn to stick to your script), (ii) edit your videos, or (iii) stick to writing.
FWIW, Regarding “the 500” of 1 Cor 15,
doktrspin on /r/AcademicBiblical wrote a good argument against Pauline authorship of 1 Cor 15:3-11 based on textual analysis.
It quite amazes me how people reading 1 Cor 15 don’t notice the problems involved in maintaining the Pauline origin of 3-11. Look at this:
12 Now if Christ is proclaimed as raised from the dead , how can some of you say there is no resurrection of the dead? 13 If there is no resurrection of the dead, then Christ has not been raised ; 14 and if Christ has not been raised , then our proclamation has been in vain and your faith has been in vain. 15 We are even found to be misrepresenting God, because we testified of God that he raised Christ—whom he did not raise if it is true that the dead are not raised . 16 For if the dead are not raised, then Christ has not been raised . 17 If Christ has not been raised , your faith is futile and you are still in your sins. 18 Then those also who have died in Christ have perished. 19 If for this life only we have hoped in Christ, we are of all people most to be pitied.
Hang on a second, you should be asking, hasn’t Paul just demonstrated that Christ has been raised in 3-7 with eye witness accounts? Why then does he need to go on extensively with this theoretical argument on whether Christ has been raised? There is a wave of conditionals, if… if… if… if… and so on. This is rendered totally useless, had he already produced eye witness reports as to the fact Christ had been raised.
Paul goes on to supply his theological reasoning for why he can conclude that Christ had been raised in 20ff, even 29b and 30-32. Paul’s discourse functions as though the appearances are not part of that discourse, not part of his logic and not a substantive contributor to his thought.
The original text is highly structured as a chiasm:
A: 1-2 hold firmly to the word
B: 12-19 If the dead are not raised
C: 20-23 The position of Christ
D: 24-25 Subjection
E: 26 death destroyed
D' 27 Subjection
C' 28 The position of Christ
B' 29-32 If the dead are not raised
A' 34 sin no more
This chiasm focuses on God’s plan: “26 The last enemy to be destroyed is death.” Of course Christ has been raised: death is being made defunct through him. There is no room in this structure for the material in 3-11.
But then looking at what is found there numerous problems arise.
- Consistently mistranslated in v.8, Paul supposedly describes himself as an abortion (εκτρωμα), the so-called “one untimely born”. Imagine someone alone who is trying to sell his gospel to people describing himself as an abortion. What does that do to his credibility? Have we drunk the orthodox kool-aid about Paul being self-deprecating to this point?
- The creedal content in 3b-4 presupposes a communal development of a tradition. Look at it: “that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the scriptures, 4 and that he was buried, and that he was raised on the third day in accordance with the scriptures”. This is performative language developed for recital. Supposedly Paul is writing this stuff himself, alone, after receiving his revelation. Performative language is a strong pointer to established church practice, not the work of a lone proselytizer with no tradition to depend on (other than his revelation).
- The use of the verb παρελαβον in v.3—to describe the material that follows as that which Paul “received”—describes the reception of a pupil from a teacher, which is fine if Paul received it from God, as in the case of Gal 1:10, ie not from man but received from God. The verb in this case subjects Paul to men, passing by his revelation, and is totally against Paul’s self-image.
There are other issues in the 1 Cor 15:3-11 passage, such as the 500 and when it is first seen in christian tradition beyond here, the appearance to the apostles, and who are the twelve Christ appeared to if there were only eleven at that stage? Internally, the three points I list above are substantial enough to show the difficulty with 3-11. The context, as I pointed out at the beginning excludes its content.
https://amp.reddit.com/r/AcademicBiblical/comments/4nj9cy/is_1_cor_15311_an_interpolation/
It is interesting to note that, after I exposed Paulogia and Rumraket for falsely claiming that I didn’t understand Paulogia’s argument when the fact is that they didn’t understand my argument, instead of acknowledging their mistake someone else (Tim) came along and claimed that the youtube video comments suggest that I was being deceptive without bothering to check out the video to find out for himself. The lack of proper accounting of careless remarks and the prevalence of sloppy thinking among some people in this thread is simply atrocious.
If for whatever reason you are unwilling to check out the primary source (the youtube video) and verify it, then you should just keep quiet rather than selectively quoting the rumours of some youtube commentators who did not listen to the video carefully, while ignoring those who listened carefully.
Concerning the comments, the fact is that I was not the one who provided the 3 scholars the video (it was Cameron), but even then, the reasons for thinking that the scholars have been misrepresented remains valid even on Paulogia’s original video. As other youtube commentators have already pointed out (I copy and paste below)
‘Many critics of this video are confused. They have confounded two issues: (1) whether paulogia’s use of Allison’s CLIP for the purpose of rebutting loke’s original argument was a misrepresentation of Allison’s clip (2) whether loke’s original argument is a good argument in response to the doubts expressed in Allison’s EMAIL. Point (1) is addressed in THIS video, and it has been shown beyond doubt that Paulogia MISREPRESENTED Allison’s clip (see my other post) and also Licona & McDowell & loke. Point (2) was addressed in loke’s earlier video : Who Saw Risen Jesus? Dr. Andrew Loke Responds to @Paulogia - YouTube .’
That is, I have already addressed Allison’s concern in his EMAIL about what we can say concerning the 500 in my earlier video. That point is independent of the point that Allison’s CLIP has been misrepresented by Paulogia, since (as other commentators point out, copy and paste below: )
‘Both Loke and Allison agree that Allison’s video clip was about whether WE could verify the details of what the 500 saw, yet Paulogia cited Allison’s clip to argue against Loke’s point about whether the CORINTHIANS could verify whether there were 500. So Paulogia’s citation of Allison’s video clip IS a misrepresentation.’
‘Loke did not misunderstand Paulogia’s point, contrary to Paulogia’s allegation. He discussed Paulogia’s point in the next slide which Paulogia ignored. So Paulogia’s citation of Loke IS a misrepresentation. Paulogia also misrepresented McDowell and Licona. No doubt about that.’
‘The way paulogia prefaced sean’s clip with ‘what the christian expert says’ & then cut & paste making it seems as if sean affirms 2 instead of 6 in sean’s original video is simply inexcusable; tis is a clearly a misrepresentation regardless of whether sean was shown the original or the edited version.’
There may be various reasons (exhaustion or otherwise) for why Paulogia has not yet responded to my 17 objections, but this does not take away from my point that those 17 objections show that his view and his arguments are wrong.
Finally, I simply do not have the time to keep correcting the sloppy reasoning that is prevalent among those who object to Jesus’ resurrection in this and other Peaceful Science threads, so I shall take my leave from here and focus my attention on engaging with Paulogia who is the source of so much sloppy reasoning. I am still hopeful that he will get back to me concerning the written debate (he told Cameron that he would reply to my email), until then, my 17 objections stand.
Haha, oh my. My days of having taken you seriously have come to an end.
I would suggest that the “reason[s]” are reasonably compelling:
The “primary source” for this issue is not just your most recent video, but all six hours of your videos on the subject, which is longer than Richard Attenborough’s most recent documentary series (A Perfect Planet), plus Paulogia’s own responses.
You tend to speak way too fast.
You have a bad, and repeated, habit of changing your mind about what you want to say, in the middle of a sentence, at times multiple times in the same sentence. This makes following your line of argument difficult and aggravating.
This is quite apart from the fact that I (along with a number of others on this forum) find videos to be a less-than-ideal means of communicating serious and complex information.
You were presenting this video on this thread as though it is in some way validation of your position, and making further accusations here. I was suggesting that, given this video’s reception (by those willing to endure your interminable rapid-fire rambling), the issue is not so clear-cut.
Given your verbosity, and hectoring tone, I have little interest in conversing further with you. My purpose was to point out that the claims you made in your video do not appear to be widely accepted. I have achieved that purpose, so will leave this to those who are willing to “get into the weeds” with you.
Which argument in my book is abysmal?
Yeah, great response, Andrew. That’s just what I’m talking about.
Namely? which specific argument, and why is it abysmal?
Keep it up Andrew. Your credibility is diminishing by the second.
Are you really going to pretend I, along with many members of this group, have not already addressed many of your arguments? If you want to pick up where we left off, you are more than welcome to resume those discussions. Otherwise, just understand that “I have lots and lots of lots of arguments! And they’re all great! No one can defeat them!” is not an intellectually respectable rhetorical strategy, unless you’re a fan of professional wrestling or Donald Trump.
Now who is pretending here? Are you really going to pretend that I have not already replied in other threads to many of the arguments of yourself and other members of this group by demonstrating that they are based on sloppy reasoning? Now I have already mentioned in my previous post that I don’t have time to keep on correcting sloppy reasoning, so I am asking you (and you only) for ONE example (since you claim that my arguments are abysmal I am going to hold you accountable for your word). Let me ask again: Which ONE of my argument is abysmal, and why? Stop dodging the question. (btw, it is getting late here in HK, so I am sleeping soon. I look forward to reading your reply tomorrow. Goodnight.).
I’m sorry but the “sloppy reasoning” you refer to is yours. Talk to me again about how you know there were 500 witnesses of the resurrection (what did they see? When? where were they? Who were they?), or how you know Jesus’ body weren’t thrown in some mass grave as was the normal thing to happen to crucifix victims? And try to do it without employing special pleading.
Or better yet, how about where you write in your book that you can take the output of some bayesian argument that God exists, using the purported resurrection as evidence in the calculation, to feed back into an argument that the resurrection is likely to have occurred, because (by your previous argument using the resurrection) God is likely to exist.
Please do not even begin to pretend to lecture anyone here on sloppy reasoning.
Seriously? Keep your objections substantive please. This crosses a line.
Let’s all refrain from this sort of posturing please.
Knowing both @Andrew_Loke and @Rumraket , you both should be taken seriously. Slow down and back of this approach please.
Are you quite certain this is “beyond doubt”? Do you know what Allison’s position is on the 500 witnesses to the resurrected Jesus described by Paul? Honest question, I don’t know myself. But from the video it appears he is at the very least skeptical. He makes humorously mocking remarks like “500 is a lot of people. Was there a receiving line? Was it on Jumbotron?” (I am paraphrasing here).
The tiny snippet that Paulogia cut about the claim being post-Pentacostal did not substantially undermine this, as far as I can see. I understood Allison as saying that, whatever story or event Paul was alluding to would have been post-Pentacostal because otherwise it’s hard to imagine a crowd of 500 Christians being in one place. This does NOT entail that Allison believes the story is true.
IOW, it seems as likely as not that you and Bertuzzi are the ones misrepresenting Allison when you suggest he thinks there were 500 actual witnesses. So it’d be good to see what Allison believes in his own words.
I have explained in my previous post that I will reply to an example of one argument from Faizal only. Since he seems to agree with you, I shall reply to him on your first point concerning the 500 below (btw, your second point concerning the fate of Jesus’ body does not even address the arguments I offered in Chapter 6 of my book, while your point concerning Bayesianism is based on a misrepresentation of my book).
Isn’t it further example of sloppy reasoning when you claimed that I didn’t understand the context and purpose of the argument Paulogia was making, and when I replied by explaining that I did understand Paulogia’s argument and responded to it (see Are Paulogia’s Videos Deceptive? Cameron & Dr. Loke Respond - YouTube 1 ; from 37 minutes onwards), you simply reply ‘Haha, oh my. My days of having taken you seriously have come to an end’ without responding to my explanation?