Hey, ceeboo. In my mind, your questions are like asking why the Iliad didn't end with the death of Achilles, when ultimately that is where his wrath would lead, as he was given a choice between a long life of obscurity or a short life of heroism and he chose the latter. The question of why something ends the way it does in ancient literature is not usually answered in accordance with modern narrative or historiographical expectations. Indeed, there is a lot of scholarship devoted to explaining the endings of ancient works. I would prefer looking to the work itself for answers, not a modern person's musings according to their expectations absent literary analysis.ceeboo wrote: ↑Mon Dec 23, 2024 4:07 pmHey Kish,
Perhaps, but I think the reason for late dating, at least in part, is to explain away prophesy (Jesus would die and raise himself from the dead and the destruction of the Temple) as things written about after events happened, rather than the writings being written before said events. Critical/liberal scholarship, clearly in my mind, force late dating to remove/eliminate the possibility of prophecy/miracles - from their naturalistic worldview, miracles aren't a thing, so the late dating proves to be the only answer on the table given this worldview.
In my mind, a fairly strong case can be made for Mark, Matthew, Luke, and acts all being written before 70AD. Consider the following short version of such a case: In Acts 28, Luke ends his discussion with Paul (Who is under house arrest in Rome waiting his trial before Ceaser) but he ends the story there - Never tells us what happened in the trial. Luke has two main characters that he speaks about in the book of Acts (Peter and Paul) - the first 9 chapters are about Peter and the rest is about Paul - He also mentions Stephen being killed and James (brother of John) being killed by Herod, but not a single mention of the deaths of the two main characters he writes about (Peter or Paul).
We know that Peter and Paul were killed in the 60'sAD - So if Acts is late date (70's - 80's) why wouldn't Luke mention the deaths of the two main characters he wrote about but did mention the death of Stephen and James (brother of John - death dates at 62AD)? Additionally, Luke records Jesus' prophecy about the destruction of the Temple (70AD), yet Luke never even mentions the fulfillment of the prophecy in Acts. James (brother of Jesus) was killed in 62AD but Luke doesn't mention this event either. None of the gospels mention the destruction of the Temple (a very significant event) - To me, this is strong evidence that all the gospels were written prior to the destruction (70AD)
Clearly, in my opinion, a case can be made that Acts was written before 62AD - Before James, Peter, and Paul were martyred - Before the Temple was destroyed - Luke was written before 62AD, and the Gospels were written before Acts. So now you push Luke and Acts to 60ishAD - Matthew and Mark, written before Acts, pushing them back to the 50's AD (conservatively).
Early dating doesn't require a "very optimistic and apologetic perspective". as you say, I think it is a fairly strong position worthy of consideration.
In any case, I still don't put much stock in the idea that Gospels written by unknown persons in the 50s would necessarily contain faithful accounts of the things Jesus said. Compare the depictions of Socrates written by Plato and Xenophon, and I think you begin to see the problem. Plato is crafting his own portrait of Socrates for his own ends, and Xenophon does the same. They choose different material, and the results differ quite a bit. Do I believe that everything Plato put in Socrates' mouth in the Apology was what he actually said at his trial? Hardly.
And in this case we are talking about two men whom we know knew Socrates personally in life. We really have no idea who authored the Gospels. These authors could be relying largely on oral traditions about what Jesus said, which are likely unreliable. After all, the core issue is this: if there was no ancient expectation that the memory of Jesus be rendered wie es eigentlich gewesen, then why should we trust that it was because that is what we expect as moderns?
Yes, once again you are telling me how Ehrman's argument is weak, and I already agreed with you. Still, thanks for the extra grist for my mill. But this does not in any way prove that the actual Jesus claimed to be God. All it tells me is that followers in the Jesus movement later claimed he did.Perhaps my personal bias will be seasoned throughout my response, but I wanted to give you a response all the same.
In short, I will be responding to the following idea: In John's gospel, we see the divine Jesus while we don't see this in Mathew, Mark, and Luke - Suggesting the idea of later development/embellishment.
First - You must understand context/time/audience. You must read these books as though you were a Jew with the first century mindset. If you were to do that, you would find Jesus claims to be divine all over the place in all four gospels. A few examples below - Thos who were seeing/hearing were devout Jews; they knew the Old Testament scriptures.
The calming of the storm (found in Matthew. Mark, and Luke) - Psalm 107:9 "He stilled the storm to a whisper;
the waves of the sea were hushed." - Psalm 107 using the divine name "YHWH" as the one who stills the storm to a whisper and made the waves hush. So, when Jesus did this on the Sea of Galilee, good Jewish readers (those who reciting and memorized these Psalms) would instantly relate what Jesus did to "JWHW" (God) is Psalm 107.
There is quite a bit of scholarship on the Son of Man designation, and my understanding is that most of the time Jesus is using the term as basically an "everyman" description, not to identify himself as the Son of Man in Daniel, who is, after all, not necessarily the same person as God anyway.Jesus identifies himself as the Son of Man (A divine title)
I agree with you about all of that, but I do not agree that this could/should render everyone, including reasonable scholars without a skeptic's ax to grind, confident that the Gospels are historically accurate. On this point I am somewhat of a minimalist. I think there is a mishmash of material in the Gospels: some reliable traditions, lots of material larded in to fulfill prophecy, plenty of devotional creativity, and the fact that a popular leader named Jesus was executed by Pontius Pilate.As I already said, I am a believer and much of what I find to be fairly strong evidence would most likely not be seen as fairly strong evidence to a skeptic/agnostic/atheist. All I am suggesting is that the development of Jesus being divine starting in the Gospel of John is not as solid as some might believe it to be, in my opinion.
