Irish1975 wrote: ↑Mon Jan 11, 2021 9:56 am
billd89 wrote: ↑Sun Jan 10, 2021 11:33 pm
Charles Baudelaire was a flamboyant narcissist (NPD).
Perhaps. But the point is that he wrote great stuff and told wonderful stories that proved convincing even to his 19th/20th century biographers living in the so-called age of reason. “Believing” his imagination over his memory was integral to his art. If it happened in the modern age, all the more likely is it to have happened in ancient times.
Many Biblical writiers (especially “Mark”) must have “believed” what their imagination brought forth, and rode the tide of an enthusiastic audience. This is why I think it is absolutely unsound to infer from such and such prophecy or parable in the Gospels that the author intended/knew/wanted/expected, etc thus and so, or worse, must have been living in the year X or the decade Y. It’s like mapping stars through a kaleidoscope.
No, Baudelaire was CERTAINLY a bullsh*tter and Narcissist. We should not equivocate on the truth (which does exist).
AND - separate issue - he was an excellent (viz. best representative) artist of his day/milieu. He saw himself as an artist-storyteller (not historian), too. I doubt he was a divine, either: the differences vastly outweigh any similarities.
Your OP is about "arguments" (which I presume to be about 'history' and 'facts'), but now you've switched to talking about "art" and 'fiction'? These are NOT the same topic; I don't conflate the two.
Big Picture? Personally, I don't (and never did) believe the Bible is factual; it is factitious (artificial, made-up) though not entirely false in all details. It is a leading argument/ assemblage on a myriad of little myths, which comprise a jerry-rigged belief-system and pseudo-history. Again, there are likely to be many minor points that do reflect, allude, connect to actual historical events - but caveat lector! I have nothing against 'the Bible' as a communal reference for believers, either. (Free country, and all that.)
In detail? I do suppose most of the authors “believed” what they expressed, and their expression was more likely than not a 'product of their time'. I don't believe they approached their writing as 'historical' - the scientistic idea of historicity or legalistic 'factual truth' is misplaced, here. Some authors had pointed agendas, too: like here (or any internet forum), not everyone 'basically tells the whole truth' that they know. And some people are simply wrong/crazy! But the real problem w/ the Gospels is the 2nd-5th generation redactors, who edited/manipulated in however many iterations
with very real, and different, outside agendas. Therein lies the corruption; we have to try to uncover or discern the 1st generation version (aka 'Gospel authors') to know their truth. Impossible? Thus, endless debates
on opinion.
Baudelaire told Baudelaire's 'truth', completely unmediated by anyone but his own editor/publisher. The 'Gospel of Mark', otoh, is probably a 3th or 4th generation (plus?) iteration off one or more specific Quelle documents (with several others, perhaps competing versions, circulating contemporaneously), so what we see is mere survivorship bias. In the (1930s American)work I am examining, the published version and manuscript are 95% identical, but the 'framed history' - deliberately manufactured 10-20 years later - is almost entirely false and misleading,
without tampering the original material. THEN - call it 3rd generation - amateur scholars of the last 25 years have created their own divergent narratives to explain the gross inconsistencies, to rationalize the impossibilities of the manufactured 'history of'. The actual history (true facts, publicly known or unknown) gets convoluted or buried fairly quickly
by opinion, in my example.
I love storytelling and myth, anyway; I'm guessing 99% of what I read is 'opinion' (a spectrum: from falsehood/error, to unsubstantiated conjecture) and I'm rarely disappointed. I also appreciate reading sane viewpoints that are not readily apparent to me. Memo to self? 'Don't believe your own bullsh*t!'
That's my two cents on the topic )