hakeem wrote: ↑Tue Jan 16, 2018 9:14 amAnyone who has read gMark and the Pauline Corpus would easily recognise that the stories of Jesus are all implausible.
hakeem --
With all due respect to you, I believe you are making major Category Errors in your analysis. Your statement concerning "...stories
of Jesus..." is false on the face of it
to many believers. This implies that, in order to find Truth Value in what you state, a "deeper" analysis is required. Yet, that is not what your assert: "Anyone who has read gMark...". That is false as well. I will even meet you halfway and agree that, as statements of fact, (many) "stories of Jesus" are implausible. That, however, reduces to the ideas of "I like chocolate but don't like vanilla". This is countered by, "No, the more correct statement should be that one should like vanilla and not chocolate...".
This gets us nowhere.
The claim that Jesus said things will happen before they die is really no different to the story that Jesus claimed a fig tree would die because it had no fruits.
In order to find meaning in this, another step needs to be taken (to get all Hegelian about it...). If this is "simply" a record of someone recording the actions of a "Jesus" character, not much more can be said. "Ahhh, but Jesus is saying something much deeper here!" What? Once you open the stories up for analysis, you begin to find more and more plausibility - HISTORICAL plausibility, by way of Symbolic Assignment.
Assume, for example, that Hyam Maccoby was on the right track: These are POLITICAL stories. You make Symbolic Assignments: "Fig Trees" may be assigned to political families. Perhaps Roman political families. Then, an immediate symbolic reduction would find, in that time frame, the Julio-Claudians were to be overthrown and the Flavians were Ascending.
OK. That's an interesting flavor of ice cream. Is there anything else that might support this? Yes. Much more.
The stories of Jesus are all non-historical and the author of gMark is unknown.
False. Can you find the death of the Hasmonean Rulers in the NT? I can.
Mark 9: 42 (RSV):
[42] "Whoever causes one of these little ones who believe in me to sin, it would be better for him if a great millstone were hung round his neck and he were thrown into the sea.
Did anyone ever throw great millstones into the sea? Yes. Herod did. This verse is a Herod story. Very Historical,
if Josephus is to be believed. "Why would we doubt Josephus?" This also is a request for a deeper examination, as the stories of Mark demand examination.
Here's one:
"Islam arose because of agreements between Flavius Constantinus Heraclius and the tribes in the eastern sections of the Roman empire."
That's True, by the way. God couldn't get his Worship Structures correct in 3 tries over 600 years?
There is something else going on here, hakeem. Yes, the "Jesus" stories are implausible. That, however, is a request for an examination of those stories, not a dismissal.
CW