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The AD33 crucifixion detail in Judea
#91
Quote:Or, it could be that it is factual as written, yes?

It's my understanding, based on Ehrman's writing, that the standard scholarly view is that much New Testament material was invented to help impress and win converts. The alleged birth of jesus in bethlehem for example, was made up to make it appear this was in fulfillment of what the prophet micah said--the messiah would be born there.

Quote:BTW, we don't know if it was AD33. Jesus' crucifixion was sometime around that time, since he was born probably in about 7BC, and started his ministry when he was "about 30", and preached for roughly 3 years. Reasonable to think the time might be from 26 to 35 or so.

Of course. Dates I've seen range from 29-33 CE. Pilate's tenure was from 26-36 IIRC.

Quote: Is there other historical evidence to cast doubt on the soldier's using his hasta/lancea to make sure the executed was dead?

Strange that the synoptics don't mention it, even though they mentioned rather trivial things like the drink. From what I've read, John, the only one of the canonical four which mentions the spear thrust, is the least reliable historically.

Quote: On that, it seems clear enough that he would have known what angle to set his spear to pass through a lung into the heart, thus ensuring death, even if the victim were simply unconscious, don't you agree?

But crucifixion is enough to kill somebody, and the point is a slow agonizing death. John wrote in effect that the approaching sunset (sabbath) led to a need for haste, hence the spear to finish him, but Mark indicates the crucifixion began earlier than the time john gives--noon.
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#92
Quote:BTW, we don't know if it was AD33.
Because we are unsure whether Good Friday fell on Nisan 14 or Nisan 15, there are a number of possible dates: 11 April AD 27, 7 April AD 30, 3 April AD 33, 26 March AD 34, 23 April AD 34. Humphreys & Waddington* favour AD 33, but (in my opinion) AD 30 cannot be ruled out. (The AD 27 and AD 34 dates are highly unlikely for various reasons -- which I cannot recall!)

* C.J. Humphreys & W.D. Waddington, "Dating the crucifixion", Nature 306 (December 1983), pp. 743-746.
posted by Duncan B Campbell
https://ninth-legion.blogspot.com/
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#93
I have not read Mr. Ehrman's writings.

I wonder, however about the implication that, "Well, it's the Bible. Of course it can't be true" that many people take. Since this is the forum it is, I'll say no more about that, lest we get into a discussion that's not allowed here.

John was present at the Crucifixion, and the verses following the spear thrust signifies that not only was he an eyewitness, he wrote these things as a factual report. He was close enough to hear Jesus give His mother to John's charge. If the other 3 gospel writers were farther back in the crowd, it's reasonable to assume that their accounts would lack some of the details that a closer viewer would notice.

On the other hand, those who view it as a spurious document ought not try to make sense of it, by simple logical thinking, nor should they spend much time trying to figure out which verses are true and which are not. But that's just my view.

Thanks, Duncan for that list of dates.
M. Demetrius Abicio
(David Wills)

Saepe veritas est dura.
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#94
Quote:I have not read Mr. Ehrman's writings.

I suggest you read his Jesus Interrupted. Smile

Quote:I wonder, however about the implication that, "Well, it's the Bible. Of course it can't be true" that many people take.

Basically the problem is that people have accepted it uncritically.


Quote:John was present at the Crucifixion, and the verses following the spear thrust signifies that not only was he an eyewitness, he wrote these things as a factual report. He was close enough to hear Jesus give His mother to John's charge. If the other 3 gospel writers were farther back in the crowd, it's reasonable to assume that their accounts would lack some of the details that a closer viewer would notice.

There's virtually no possibility the gospels were written by the actual apostles. For one thing, the gospels were written in Greek, whereas the apostles spoke aramaic and were most likely illiterate. Also the gospel of john was written c 90-95 CE, 60 or so years after the crucifixion. It's not likely any apostle was still alive in an age when the average life expectancy was maybe 20-30.

Quote:.. nor should they spend much time trying to figure out which verses are true and which are not...

As Ehrman wrote, this is exactly what scholars have been doing for a century or more. He mentioned the methodological criteria used to separate truth from fiction in the NT.
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#95
Suppose I didn't believe that Julius Caesar conquered Gaul. Instead, I believed that his Gallic Wars was simply a composite account of a number of generals' exploits in Gaul, and that between all their efforts, over a period of years, Gaul was conquered, and a consortium of writers decided amongst themselves that it would be good political strategy to ascribe the war to Caesar. And that over a number of years, ideas and events were added to the text to make points and create examples that made him look good.

If I believed it was a spurious document, if I believed it never happened, if I believed it was virtually impossible that it was dictated to some scribe or other to be recorded at the time and/or after the fact in the form of memoirs--if I believed that, it would be easy to pick and choose from what I wanted to believe was actually fact and what was entirely fiction.

Quote:Basically the problem is that people have accepted it uncritically.
And some have rejected it uncritically, many without even reading it.

But as I said, and I'm self-moderating here, this can not become a discussion of the validity of the Bible, as it will quickly become a discussion on "modern religion" and we'll both be in trouble with the Staff. We should return to the original questions, rather than whether the text is accurate or not.
M. Demetrius Abicio
(David Wills)

Saepe veritas est dura.
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#96
Quote:Suppose I didn't believe that Julius Caesar conquered Gaul. Instead, I believed that his Gallic Wars was simply a composite account of a number of generals' exploits in Gaul, and that between all their efforts, over a period of years, Gaul was conquered, and a consortium of writers decided amongst themselves that it would be good political strategy to ascribe the war to Caesar. And that over a number of years, ideas and events were added to the text to make points and create examples that made him look good.

Caesar did much more than conquer Gaul. His ability was evident at Pharsalus and elsewhere. Either the Gallic etc accounts are true or he had extraordinary influence in the literary world. Smile
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#97
Acknowledging the forum rules and, like David, aware of the implications a discussion on the accuracy of the New Testament would have, I have refrained from commenting on the last few posts.
However, as someone who trained as a historian at a university which prized academic rigour and was not afraid to send students down for sloppy work, I get very concerned at the freedom some modern commentators seem to feel in arbitrarily rejecting sections of a work emanating from an age outside their own experience, whilst accepting some others uncritically. If all ancient literature was subjected to the same level of piecemeal criticism that the Bible often is, we really would have very little which would be generally accepted about the ancient world. Therefore, from the researcher's point of view, all sources must be given equal weight unless it can be demonstrably proved that this cannot be justified.
Statements to the effect that this bit or that bit was made up for the purpose of winning converts are little more than assumptions - they are subjective judgments which are not based on information either in the Bible or in other contemporary evidence. This is not academic rigour - it is sloppy subjectivity.

Without venturing too far forward into any sort of material which would risk running fowl of the very sensible RAT ban on religious discussion, I do think it is worth examining a few of the statements in your last post.


"There's virtually no possibility the gospels were written by the actual apostles."

Well, perhaps not any one of the 12 apostles, but the term can be justifiably extended to others in the wider group of Jesus' disciples, who must have numbered at least a couple of hundred. This is merely semantics though.
In fact we can be sure that at least two of the gospels were not written by members of the inner 12 apostles. Both Matthew and Luke quote material from an earlier source, known as 'Q', as well as material from Mark's gospel. They would be most unlikely to do this if they were speaking from their own experience of being with Jesus. Therefore, the author of Matthew's gospel could not be the apostle Matthew. However he need not have been a stranger either. A strong case can be made, as has already been discussed in this thread, for the author of Luke's gospel having been the same Luke who is mentioned in the book of Acts, as well as in Paul's letters, who therefore knew people who did have first hand experience of Jesus and could thus benefit from this first hand knowledge.
For Mark's gospel, tradition from at least as early as the second century AD considered Mark's gospel to be an account given by the apostle Peter and written down by a scribe by the name of Mark. There seems little good reason for rejecting this as a valid possibility.
John's gospel is different in character to the other three and includes a good deal of independent material, exactly as we would expect if an author had first hand knowledge of his material.


"There's virtually no possibility the gospels were written by the actual apostles. For one thing, the gospels were written in Greek, whereas the apostles spoke aramaic and were most likely illiterate."

Do you have evidence to back up that claim? It is true that perhaps the majority of Jesus' regular disciples were from Galilee and therefore spoke Aramaic. However, it is equally true that they lived in a Greek speaking world.
In central Africa today, many people speak Lingala with each other, but they are also fluent in French, as all government material is in French and it is the language of trade and a lingua franca for using with speakers of other regional languages. In the same way, all official matters in the Hellenistic world (which included Judea) were dealt with in Greek. This would include public notices and inscriptions. Greek was also the lingua franca for people from different areas and thus the language of trade. Any suggestion that Aramaic speakers would not also be likely to be fluent in Greek is spurious and uninformed.
As far as illiteracy is concerned, it was common for people to be illiterate, but this did not prevent them from getting other people to read things out to them or making use of professional scribes for setting things down in writing, much the same as our own society prior to the 1870s.


"Also the gospel of john was written c 90-95 CE, 60 or so years after the crucifixion."


We don't actually know that for sure, although there are indications that it might have been finished as late as the early AD90s. However, there is no reason why John could not have started it long before this and why whoever did the final work could not have been an attentive and conscientious pupil of his. We know that John was still around at least as late as the late AD60s, and there is no reason to assume that the bulk of his gospel had not already been written by that time.
For the other three gospels we can actually propose a narrower timescale. As pages from all three have now been identified amongst the Dead Sea Scrolls, we can be sure that they were all written before mid AD68, giving a window of 40 years or less, certainly a possible span for living memory. There is also nothing to say that they could not have been sitting for thirty years or more in the Kumran library before the community shut up shop in 68.
From the internal evidence we can be sure that Mark's gospel was the first of the three to be written. The source known as 'Q' which is used by Matthew and Luke, is likely, given it attitude to the Romans, to have been written before AD42. Even if Mark's gospel was written after 'Q', it still puts the earliest extant account of Jesus to within twelve years of the events. Twelve years may seem like quite a while but when you consider that the earliest extant source we have for Alexander the Great, that of Q. Curtius Rufus, was written around three hundred years after Alexander's death. In that sort of context, the gospels are remarkable for their contemporaneity, which is matched by only a very small proportion of the overall surviving ancient historical material.


"It's not likely any apostle was still alive in an age when the average life expectancy was maybe 20-30."

I think you are confusing average life expectancy with maximum life expectancy. An average life expectancy takes into account infant mortality and other premature death. Thus an average life expectancy of 40 (for instance) for ten people might actually be two people who lived to sixty five, three who lived to fifty, two who lived to forty five, one who lived to thirty and one who died at birth. The average life expectancy for these ten is forty, but none of them actually died at this age.

Crispvs
Who is called \'\'Paul\'\' by no-one other than his wife, parents and brothers.  :!: <img src="{SMILIES_PATH}/icon_exclaim.gif" alt=":!:" title="Exclamation" />:!:

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#98
Thank you Crispvs, that was very refreshing and well stated.
"The evil that men do lives after them;
The good is oft interred with their bones"

Antony
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#99
Quote:Caesar did much more than conquer Gaul.
You're missing the point I wanted to make in my analogy, and I take all responsibility for missed information.

So assuming I don't believe Caesar's written account of the Gallic conquest was real, or was attributable to him, but instead was a list of fabricated propaganda for the purpose of making Caesar seem more than he was, and in fact was added to by people long after his death, I seek out proof of my theory.

To substantiate my claims, I interview people. Crassus. Brutus. Four surviving Gallic noblemen whose fathers were at Alesia. Pompey's best friend. Mark Antony's writings. Amazingly enough, they all agree that Caesar was not as great as he said he was, in fact he was a pompous, ambitious fraud. So between them, I find enough anecdotal evidence to prove convincingly that he was a coward, a poor general, a teller of tales (elks have no knees, indeed!), a useless politician and a womanizer and well-deserving of death on the Senate floor.

If one only looks at those who support his position, whatever that position may be, one will find the conclusion he is looking for, if that is his aim.

But then if I were to use portions of De Bello Gallico to support or disprove some historical theory or other, that would be hypocrisy of the worst kind, wouldn't it?

OTOH, I do believe that the people who wrote eyewitness accounts were either writing what they saw, or what they remembered they'd seen, in those cases where they wrote at a later time. Caesar, Pliny, John, Luke, they saw what they saw and wrote what they wrote
M. Demetrius Abicio
(David Wills)

Saepe veritas est dura.
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Quote:OTOH, I do believe that the people who wrote eyewitness accounts were either writing what they saw, or what they remembered they'd seen, in those cases where they wrote at a later time. Caesar, Pliny, John, Luke, they saw what they saw and wrote what they wrote

Ehrman and others consider it highly unlikely that aramaic speaking (and probably illiterate) jewish peasants from c 30 CE could've written gospels in refined Greek over half a century later. The gospels weren't even attributed to specific apostles until a century after they were written. It's most parsimonious to attribute them to unknown Greek christians born after the events of 30-33 CE.
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Interesting assumptions. Enjoy your day, sir.
M. Demetrius Abicio
(David Wills)

Saepe veritas est dura.
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Tim,

"Ehrman and others consider it highly unlikely that aramaic speaking (and probably illiterate) jewish peasants from c 30 CE could've written gospels in refined Greek over half a century later."


I don't think you read my post above properly, as I have dealt with some of this for you already. I appreciate also the fact that you don't read Greek, but had you read this thread properly you would already know that of the four gospels, only Luke's is written in a more refined standard of Greek, and as I and others have already pointed out, there are valid grounds for accepting the possibility that this gospel was written by exactly the man it has always been believed it was written by. The other three gospels are written in a more basic standard of Greek and it would be reasonable to accept that they were dictated to scribes who wrote down what they were told.

I appreciate that Mr Ehrman has written much about textual criticism, but is he a noted scholar on levels of literacy in the ancient world or how society dealt with such issues? Also, if you are presenting his work faithfully, has he never met anyone who can speak more than one language, whether or not it was learnt at school? In addition to this, was he aware of the newly identified Dead Sea Scrolls material when he wrote? If not, some of the views expressed in his books may already be out of date.


"The gospels weren't even attributed to specific apostles until a century after they were written."

Well, as I think may have been mentioned already, we don't know this for sure. All we know is that the well known appellations were in use by the mid second century AD. That doesn't mean though that they only date to then, only that our earliest surviving references to the names date to then. It is a terminus ante quem, rather than a definite date of introduction. If you go away for a month and return home to find your wife has a new pair of shoes, does that in itself indicate that she has bought them only that morning or could it be that she bought them the day you went away and didn't tell you?

"It's most parsimonious to attribute them to unknown Greek christians born after the events of 30-33 CE."

Careful there. Make sure your windows are fully open before you cast stones. :wink:

Crispvs
Who is called \'\'Paul\'\' by no-one other than his wife, parents and brothers.  :!: <img src="{SMILIES_PATH}/icon_exclaim.gif" alt=":!:" title="Exclamation" />:!:

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Just a thought, why would you assume they were illiterate? Many were fisherman it's true but if you read the context they were successful fishermen who ran a business and had hired hands. Just because many ancient people were illiterate doesn't mean that all or some of the apostles were illiterate. Matthew was a tax collector, Luke may have been a physician.

Ancient tradition says that Peter provided the basic information for Mark’s Gospel when they were together in Babylon. (1Pe 5:13) Origen says that Mark composed his Gospel “in accordance with Peter’s instructions.” (The Ecclesiastical History, Eusebius, VI, XXV, 3-7)and Tertullian says that the Gospel of Mark “may be affirmed to be Peter’s, whose interpreter Mark was.” (The Ante-Nicene Fathers, Vol. III, p. 350) Eusebius gives the statement of “John the presbyter” as quoted by Papias (c. 140 C.E.): “And the Presbyter used to say this, ‘Mark became Peter’s interpreter and wrote accurately all that he remembered, not, indeed, in order, of the things said or done by the Lord. . . . Mark did nothing wrong in thus writing down single points as he remembered them. For to one thing he gave attention, to leave out nothing of what he had heard and to make no false statements in them.’”—The Ecclesiastical History, III, XXXIX, 12-16
"The evil that men do lives after them;
The good is oft interred with their bones"

Antony
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Quote:Just a thought, why would you assume they were illiterate? Many were fisherman it's true but if you read the context they were successful fishermen who ran a business and had hired hands. Just because many ancient people were illiterate doesn't mean that all or some of the apostles were illiterate.

This is what Ehrman says, based on a study of ancient literacy by another scholar, who said at best 10% of people could read at the time.

Quote: Matthew was a tax collector,

One thing Ehrman wrote is hard for me to swallow: the gospels, he says, were written on the basis of an exclusively oral tradition from c 30-c 70 and later. I assume somebody had to have written the original material down,possibly as far back as the time of the public ministry--and this was later translated. There's just too much stuff, and too elegantly stated at times, to have been the product of ordinary people who passed it down. It did occur to me that being a tax collector requires the ability to keep written records--who is paid up for this year, who isn't, who owes what...So, maybe old matt kept a record of the events and sayings.

Quote:Ancient tradition says that Peter provided the basic information for Mark’s Gospel when they were together in Babylon. (1Pe 5:13) Origen says that Mark composed his Gospel “in accordance with Peter’s instructions.” (The Ecclesiastical History, Eusebius, VI, XXV, 3-7)and Tertullian says that the Gospel of Mark “may be affirmed to be Peter’s, whose interpreter Mark was.” (The Ante-Nicene Fathers, Vol. III, p. 350) Eusebius gives the statement of “John the presbyter” as quoted by Papias (c. 140 C.E.): “And the Presbyter used to say this, ‘Mark became Peter’s interpreter and wrote accurately all that he remembered, not, indeed, in order, of the things said or done by the Lord. . . . Mark did nothing wrong in thus writing down single points as he remembered them. For to one thing he gave attention, to leave out nothing of what he had heard and to make no false statements in them.’”—The Ecclesiastical History, III, XXXIX, 12-16

Ehrman sure went to some lengths to shred Papias. I don't purport to be an expert on all this but Erhman stresses repeatedly that the views he expresses are standard scholarly fare and have been for a century.
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"I assume somebody had to have written the original material down,possibly as far back as the time of the public ministry"

I am inclined to agree with you here. This may be exactly what 'Q' was. There may also have been other first hand sources which are quoted by Matthew and Luke but which have not been identified due to being quoted by one gospel but not the others. I agree that some of the twelve apostles may well have been literate, with Matthew, as a tax collector, being a likely candidate, and there must surely have been at least someone in the wider group of disciples, who we can be sure also travelled some or all of the time with Jesus, who was literate. Acts 1:15 notes a group of a hundred and twenty "brothers" (who may or may not have included the twelve) from whom Matthias was selected to replace Judas Iscariot. I find it hard to believe that no-one in that number would have been literate to at least some degree.
The introduction to Luke's gospel notes that many others had previously drawn up accounts of the event described and states that from the outset these had been written by people who were eyewitnesses to the events. The implication given by the introduction is that the author has drawn his material from a number of accounts. Only two of these have been identified ('Q' and the gospel of Mark) but the implication is that there were possibly several other firsthand accounts available to inform him.


"This is what Ehrman says, based on a study of ancient literacy by another scholar, who said at best 10% of people could read at the time."

I don't know what evidence that would be based on, but even if it is a fairly accurate estimate, I see no reason why people who were effectively small businessmen who employed others might not be in that 10%. As we understand though that most Jewish boys of the period received their education in the form of learning scripture from pharisees, the likely figure for Jewish men with at least a basic level of literacy is likely to have been higher than 10%. It should be noted though and is perhaps relevant here, that studies have repeatedly shown that illiterate people often retain more accurate memories of events due to not having the facility to record these memories on paper and thus have the need to remember them in a way a literate person might not need to. This might be pertinent in the case of Mark's gospel having been dictated by Peter, which, as I said above, there is little reason not to accept the possibility of. Even if Peter was illiterate, the descriptions of him in Acts indicate that he had an excellent memory.

This is disingenuous though, as none of the four apostles known to have been fishermen (Simon-Peter, Andrew, and the sons of Zebedee, James and John) are attested as gospel writers, although as already stated, Mark's gospel is said to have been dictated to him by Peter.
As I stated above, neither Matthew or Luke were members of the inner twelve apostles and must therefore both have been part of the wider population of disciples (Matthew's use of 'Q' as a source shows that Matthew the gospel writer was not the same man as Matthew the tax collector and apostle, who having first hand experience, would not need to quote an earlier source [although see my note above]).

As to dating, reading through the book of Acts again I note that the latest event which can be dated in it is the start of the procuratorship of Porcius Festus, which is known to have begun in around AD60. The work comes to an end around two years after that, which means that Acts (which was part, along with Luke's gospel, of a two volume work which was only later separated into its two parts when the four gospels were arranged together in the New Testament [cAD150]) is likely to date to no earlier than AD62 and perhaps not much later. Luke's gospel was completed earlier than its sister volume (it is referred to as "my earlier work" in the introduction to Acts) but it may not have been much earlier as parts of chapters 16 and 20, chapter 27 and part of chapter 28 of Acts are written in the first person, indicating that the author accompanied Paul prior to his arrest in Jerusalem in cAD58 and again during his voyage to Rome in cAD60. It would seem likely therefore that Luke's gospel was written either during the period when Paul was imprisoned in Caesarea (cAD58-cAD60) or after the voyage to Rome with Paul in cAD60 (after which they seem to have parted again). Thus it is likely to date to between AD58 and A62 and certainly must have been completed by AD68 at the latest for it to have been part of the library at Kumran. There is no way of knowing whether Matthew's gospel was written any earlier than Luke's as neither shows any sign of their authors having read each other's work prior to writing.

Crispvs
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