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Author | Topic: The Jesus Puzzle by Earl Doherty | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
crashfrog Member (Idle past 1487 days) Posts: 19762 From: Silver Spring, MD Joined: |
To refer to Jesus as the Son of God and then launch into a discussion of Mark seems an unlikely mistake for a true Biblical scholar. Mark 1, Verse 1 writes:
The beginning of the good news about Jesus the Messiah, the Son of God, as it is written in Isaiah the prophet:I will send my messenger ahead of you, who will prepare your way[c] 3 a voice of one calling in the wilderness, ‘Prepare the way for the Lord, make straight paths for him.’ Mark 12, verse 35-37 writes: While Jesus was teaching in the temple courts, he asked, "How is it that the teachers of the law say that the Christ is the son of David? 36 David himself, speaking by the Holy Spirit, declared: " 'The Lord said to my Lord: "Sit at my right hand until I put your enemies under your feet." ' 37 David himself calls him 'Lord.' How then can he be his son?" The large crowd listened to him with delight. What is it I'm supposed to believe that Earl Doherty got wrong in Mark, again?
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crashfrog Member (Idle past 1487 days) Posts: 19762 From: Silver Spring, MD Joined: |
As to those who haven't spotted it yet, the issue is this: In the Gospel of Mark, Jesus is not God. Except that, as I just showed, he is. I anticipate the immediate formation of another evidence lacuna on your part, Jon, where you will think you've produced evidence that Jesus is not referred to as God in Mark, but you will not have actually done so.
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crashfrog Member (Idle past 1487 days) Posts: 19762 From: Silver Spring, MD Joined: |
I don't see that it's inconsistent with Mark, where Jesus is referred to by the divine appellation "Lord." Obviously the later gospels do much more to flesh out Jesus's divinity but you can't say that a seed of the idea isn't present in Mark. It's right there at the beginning - the whole gospel is the story of how the "way was laid" for "the Lord"; I.e. God in the person of Jesus.
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crashfrog Member (Idle past 1487 days) Posts: 19762 From: Silver Spring, MD Joined: |
It's the word "Lord" that refers to God, and in Mark "Lord" is twice used to refer to Jesus.
It's at least a seed of the notion of the full divinity of Jesus. I don't see how that can be disputed. Biblical scholarship has to start with, you know, reading your Bible.
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crashfrog Member (Idle past 1487 days) Posts: 19762 From: Silver Spring, MD Joined: |
But Doherty wrote, "Once upon a time, someone wrote a story about a man who was God." Then he said that person was "Mark." And, what? You're surprised that an editorial turn of phrase that begins with "once upon a time" doesn't reflect complete and accurate academic accuracy? People are grasping at straws to impeach Doherty, it looks like. Next, I suppose, will be Jon's contention that Jesus can't be a puzzle, because he's not a wood or cardboard image cut into interlocking shapes, he's a person, and how stupid of Doherty not to notice the difference.
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crashfrog Member (Idle past 1487 days) Posts: 19762 From: Silver Spring, MD Joined: |
Mark keeps Jesus and God separate. Not throughout. Again, Mark 1:
quote: There's a clear equivocation drawn here between the passage in Isaiah about preparing the way for the Lord, for God, and John the Baptist's mission to prepare the way for Christ. The clear implication, which you've already ignored once now, is that Jesus is Lord.
and he cried out, 'What have you to do with us, Jesus of Nazareth? Have you come to destroy us? I know who you are, the Holy One of God.' I don't see the separation.
'But about that day or hour no one knows, neither the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father. I don't see the separation. God the Son, God the Father, and God the Holy Spirit are the three aspects of the Triune Christian God. That doesn't mean that they're in any way separate from each other. Obviously it's not as explicit as it is in later gospels, but you simply can't deny that the divinity of Jesus isn't present in the gospel of Mark. That's idiotic. Edited by crashfrog, : No reason given.
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crashfrog Member (Idle past 1487 days) Posts: 19762 From: Silver Spring, MD Joined:
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I'm not saying that it's a slam-dunk exactly what Mark had in mind for his Jesus character. I've also taken flak from a couple of others, notably James McGrath, for my opening sentence. It was basically meant to be "pithy" as one supporter suggested. But as a general statement (hardly meant to identify Jesus as identical with God), I maintain it's valid if you don't insist on trying to take it apart on uncertain technicalities. The very fact that we're debating the point here at length, shows that it's not a clear-cut case. I find this explanation completely satisfying. What am I supposed to object to?
In a work such as this, nobody wants to read stuff that "doesn't reflect complete and accurate academic accuracy"; the audience isn't looking for poetic language or turns of phrase or any other such nonsense. Say what? This is at least as disqualifying of your scholarship and intellect as you claim the reference to Mark is of Doherty's. What's your evidence that florid turns of phrase are completely out of bounds in historical writings? I think you'll find such prose in historical annals from Heterodotus to Doris Kearns Goodwin. Again, you're just seizing nits to pick. The claim of the Jesus historicist is that only historicists are accurately applying "mainstream" methods of historical inference, but the more they try to attack the mythicist case, the more they show how completely false that is. Jesus historicism is based on a mode of "inference" that turns rational skepticism on its head - taking propaganda at face value, treating inferred sources as though they exist, and above all, name-calling when people don't fall in line.
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crashfrog Member (Idle past 1487 days) Posts: 19762 From: Silver Spring, MD Joined: |
Why do you keep quoting that passage from Mark where he doesn't say that Jesus is God? I'm not. I'm quoting the passage from Mark you keep pretending isn't there. You know, the one where he equates Jesus with God:
quote: Evidence lacuna... Edited by crashfrog, : No reason given.
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crashfrog Member (Idle past 1487 days) Posts: 19762 From: Silver Spring, MD Joined: |
And what evidence, specifically, substantiates the historical existence of Jesus if you're a Trinitarian, but not if you're a Pauline? Or the reverse?
If your answer is "none" then how can it possibly matter whether Doherty even knows the difference between Trinitarian and Pauline theology? Your entire argument on these grounds is nothing but the Courtier's Reply. But one does not need a degree in textile science to see that your emperor has no clothes.
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crashfrog Member (Idle past 1487 days) Posts: 19762 From: Silver Spring, MD Joined: |
I didn't think that was particularly clear, since "Lord" does not only refer to God. Sure, but it's clear in context that Mark is referring to the Lord God. There's really no ambiguity in Mark 1 that I can see. The parallel between the prophecy in Isaiah that the way would be laid for God and John the Baptist laying the way for Jesus is deliberate and obvious. Jon's simply pretending that Mark starts on the second chapter.
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