Eight Levels of Verification for the Gospels

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The Pixie
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Eight Levels of Verification for the Gospels

Post by The Pixie » Mon Sep 04, 2017 8:28 am

From Joe's page here (but in response to a discussion on Cadre):
http://religiousapriorijesus-bible.blog ... n-for.html
Atheists are too easily dismissing the concept of validity by just declaring that Bible has none and no book has any. they have no tetrameters for what validity means, totally ignore the fact that scholars have scientific rules for establishing validity...
So what are the parameters? For some reason Joe does not tell us! It is almost as though he has none either...

And why is a supposed witness account called a level of verification? Again, no answer is forth-coming.
1) The original pre Mark redaction
That there was a pre-Mark narrative seems pretty well accepted. What we ned to know is:

When did it appear?
What was in it?
How much did it change before Mark used it?

Later Joe suggests it appeared around 50AD, so nearly twenty years after the event. Did it change between then and Mark using it?
(2)the Pauline corups
This is three of his levels, by the way. Which is odd, because Paul tells us next to nothing about the resurrection - nothing to support an empty tomb, nothing to suggest a physical resurrection as opposed to resurrection in a new heavenly body.
(3) extra canonical Gospels such as Peter and Thomas
The simple response is that even the church rejects the veracity of these. When were the written? How much were they revised before they became the versions we now have? Why should we think either of these are independent of the pre-Mark narrative? If they used that (or the canonicals), then they cannot be considered a different level of verification. As far as I know, Thomas is a saying text, and so offers no insight into the resurrection.
(4) Oral tradition
More on this later (Joe has just three words here).
(5)The Gospels themselves which reflect the community as a whole, a whole community full of people who were there.
But the gospels are derived from the pre-Mark narrative, which in turn is based on the oral tradition. How can he claim these are witnesses?
(6) writers who write about their relationships with those who were there.
So at best second hand accounts, but how many of these discuss the resurrection?

http://religiousapriorijesus-bible.blog ... art-1.html
Only the canonical Gospels can be bore out as early dated, the trend is to even earlier dates, and at the same time has this vast body of attestation including the final inclusion in the canon. Skeptics also overlook the extent to which these 34 lost gospels supplement and corroborate the canonical Gospels. Most of the historical core of Thomas is in agreement with the synoptic.
So what, Joe? Matthew and Luke "corroborate" Mark because the authors copied the text! That does not make the text any more true, any more than the movie of the Hobbit made that story more true. Sure later non-canonical gospels added further "corroboration" - because they too copied the basics.

The old independent core of Peter supports the idea of guards on the tomb, meaning it also supports the crucifixion, the tomb, and the resurrection, empty tomb.

How do we know the guards were in the original version? Given the embellishment of the incident from that in Matthew, and its absence from Mark, Luke and John, it is far more likely this is an elaboration added subsequent to Matthew, in an attempt to shore up holes in his account (specifically that the body could have been stolen the first night).
Therefore, skeptics conclude, there's no authority of eye witness testimony. yet the skeptics are ignorant. These books don't have to have been written by members of the twelve Apostles to contain eye witness testimony.
Agreed. But the issue is why the church has adopted Matthew, for example, as the author when it is almost certainly not true. It illustrates that falsehoods have entered the Bible.
Scholars have for some time now recognized that the true authors are whole communities (see Luke Timothy Johnson, Writings of the New Testament). This means the community was the witness. We know that these early communities lived together communally. ... The force of truth, the power of the eye witnesse would have prevails in dominating the discussion. Eye witnesses would have been authorities and new comers would have been students.
To the contrary, this sounds to me like the perfect environment for stories to get fabricated and embellished. If one person claimed to have seen the resurrected Jesus eat fish - or perhaps had heard that Jesus ate fish - who would stand up and say it never happened?

If there was no resurrection, then there were no witnesses to the events in Jerusalem, and so no one to say, actually I was there, and that did not happen.

Furthermore, these were people wanting confirmation of their faith. They would be as critical of claims about Jesus as modern day creationists are with regards to claims about the Flood. As long as the claims confirm their beliefs, they would want them to be true.
The communal setting would have offered a controlled setting in which the information could have been kept straight, the oral culture would have provided the framework; these people knew how to keep oral tradition intact.
Exactly who knew how to keep an oral tradition intact? There is a difference between remembering and reciting an oral record, and composing one in the first place. Is there any evidence of the standard methods of ensuring accurate transmission, such as alliteration, repetition, assonance, and proverbial sayings in the Gospels? I have not heard of such a thing.

With regards to the sayings of Jesus, that would be more plausible, as that is the sort of material that would be transmitted, and it is possible Jesus composed them in a suitable format. But it is quite a leap to suppose that the early Christians immediately adopted those practices with regards to the resurrection.

http://religiousapriorijesus-bible.blog ... art-2.html

In part 2, Joe looks at Paul's usage of the oral tradition. But this is a big problem, because no where does Paul give any indication of an empty tomb or a physical resurrection. Almost as though they were not a part of the oral tradition...
The nature of the pericopes themselves shows us that the synoptic gosples are made up of units of oral tradition. Many skpetics seem to think that Mark indented the story in the Gospel and that's the first time they came to exist. But no, Mark wrote down stories that the chruch had told for decades. Each unit or story is called a "pericope" (per-ic-o-pee).


Okay, so they were continuing the oral tradition handed to them from Jesus. That is quite different to making up a new tradition from various accounts of the resurrection. Look at where Mark ended originally. If the post resurrection Jerusalem sightings were part of the oral tradition, why did Mark not include them?

The most likely explanation is that they had not been invented when he was writing!

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Re: Eight Levels of Verification for the Gospels

Post by Metacrock » Thu Sep 28, 2017 5:07 am

The Pixie wrote:From Joe's page here (but in response to a discussion on Cadre):
http://religiousapriorijesus-bible.blog ... n-for.html
Atheists are too easily dismissing the concept of validity by just declaring that Bible has none and no book has any. they have no tetrameters for what validity means, totally ignore the fact that scholars have scientific rules for establishing validity...
So what are the parameters? For some reason Joe does not tell us! It is almost as though he has none either.
..

that's pretty obvious. I just assume the commonly accepted perimeters of modern historical critical methods.
And why is a supposed witness account called a level of verification? Again, no answer is forth-coming.
eye witness accounts still accepted in both history and law.


1) The original pre Mark redaction
That there was a pre-Mark narrative seems pretty well accepted. What we ned to know is:

When did it appear?
What was in it?
How much did it change before Mark used it?
I see no reason not assume Crossomn's dating

Later Joe suggests it appeared around 50AD, so nearly twenty years after the event. Did it change between then and Mark using it?
Crosson's date, still allows a huge amount of eye witnesses and the basic community for verification.



(2)the Pauline corups
This is three of his levels, by the way. Which is odd, because Paul tells us next to nothing about the resurrection - nothing to support an empty tomb, nothing to suggest a physical resurrection as opposed to resurrection in a new heavenly body.
Yes he does.the passage about him appearing first to James.

(3) extra canonical Gospels such as Peter and Thomas
The simple response is that even the church rejects the veracity of these. When were the written?
that's ludicrous to think some entreaty you call "the church: rejects modern scholarship, it doesn't most of the crutch accepts this point because it's based upon their own scholars, they don't accept such documents as sources of revealed truth but they do accept them as historical artifacts,

How much were they revised before they became the versions we now have?
our scholarly methods give us a good idea, since they agree on some points with the canonical it's highly likely those points are true.
Why should we think either of these are independent of the pre-Mark narrative? If they used that (or the canonicals), then they cannot be considered a different level of verification. As far as I know, Thomas is a saying text, and so offers no insight into the resurrection.
they have no direct connected with the pre mark redaction because thy are not Mark. but GPet is aid to be dependent upon PMR.
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Re: Eight Levels of Verification for the Gospels

Post by Metacrock » Thu Sep 28, 2017 5:16 am

(5)The Gospels themselves which reflect the community as a whole, a whole community full of people who were there.

But the gospels are derived from the pre-Mark narrative, which in turn is based on the oral tradition. How can he claim these are witnesses?
PMR is a source, one of the levels. The Gospels are not just the Passion narrative they include other pre Mark and contempo Mark sources.

(6) writers who write about their relationships with those who were there.

So at best second hand accounts, but how many of these discuss the resurrection?
they all assume it. Irrelevant to the point I was making

http://religiousapriorijesus-bible.blog ... art-1.html
ME, Joe: Only the canonical Gospels can be bore out as early dated, the trend is to even earlier dates, and at the same time has this vast body of attestation including the final inclusion in the canon. Skeptics also overlook the extent to which these 34 lost gospels supplement and corroborate the canonical Gospels. Most of the historical core of Thomas is in agreement with the synoptic.
PX So what, Joe? Matthew and Luke "corroborate" Mark because the authors copied the text! That does not make the text any more true, any more than the movie of the Hobbit made that story more true. Sure later non-canonical gospels added further "corroboration" - because they too copied the basics.
no one can prove o disprove true, historical is the best we can get and its all we need for warrant,

The old independent core of Peter supports the idea of guards on the tomb, meaning it also supports the crucifixion, the tomb, and the resurrection, empty tomb.
How do we know the guards were in the original version? Given the embellishment of the incident from that in Matthew, and its absence from Mark, Luke and John, it is far more likely this is an elaboration added subsequent to Matthew, in an attempt to shore up holes in his account (specifically that the body could have been stolen the first night).
we had a great knock down drag out on that I wont; go over it again.go read that,

[
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Re: Eight Levels of Verification for the Gospels

Post by The Pixie » Sat Sep 30, 2017 2:32 am

Metacrock wrote:that's pretty obvious. I just assume the commonly accepted perimeters of modern historical critical methods.
So the same parameters that Biblical scholars use? Okay fine. Let it be noted that aside from conservative Christians, most Biblical scholars do not accept the empty tomb or resurrection as historical fact.
eye witness accounts still accepted in both history and law.
What eye witness account? We do not have any eye witness accounts.
I see no reason not assume Crossomn's dating
Why pick his dating over other scholars?

Crossan believes the body was probably eaten by dogs; do you agree with him there? Or do you cherry-pick the bits you like from his research?
Crosson's date, still allows a huge amount of eye witnesses and the basic community for verification.
And yet Crossan's position is that empty tomb is made up.
Yes he does.the passage about him appearing first to James.
No the passage says nothing of an empty tomb, and nothing of a physical resurrection (i.e., in the original body). You read it that way because you are already committed to that position.

Paul could have believed Jesus was buried in a pauper's grave, and was given a new body when resurrected. 1 Cor 15 is perfectly consistent with that position - more so than your own position. Read it and see if you can find verses that match your scenario better than mine.
that's ludicrous to think some entreaty you call "the church: rejects modern scholarship, it doesn't most of the crutch accepts this point because it's based upon their own scholars, they don't accept such documents as sources of revealed truth but they do accept them as historical artifacts,
Joe, look in the Bible. Those gospels are absent. They are absent because the Church decided there are not canon.

Of course they are historical artefacts. But that does not make them true - and even the Church recognised that centuries ago. And the big problem with non-canonical works is we have only a tiny number of actual documents, so no way of knowing with confidence what the originals said.
our scholarly methods give us a good idea, since they agree on some points with the canonical it's highly likely those points are true.
Or those points were copied from one to the other (and we know copying happened from the synoptics).
they have no direct connected with the pre mark redaction because thy are not Mark. but GPet is aid to be dependent upon PMR.
My claim is that Peter is dependent on the pre-Markan narrative, not that it is necessarily a direction connection, so we agree.
PMR is a source, one of the levels. The Gospels are not just the Passion narrative they include other pre Mark and contempo Mark sources.
Why should we think any of these were witnesses?
The old independent core of Peter supports the idea of guards on the tomb, meaning it also supports the crucifixion, the tomb, and the resurrection, empty tomb.
Only if you can show the guards were part of that core. A more likely scenario is that the guards were invented by the author of Matthew to counter accusations that the body had been stolen, and then it was further embellished in Peter to make it more water tight (as Matthew allows the body tobe stolen on the first night).
we had a great knock down drag out on that I wont; go over it again.go read that,
And at no point could anyone offer any evidence that the guards in Peter pre-dated Matthew.

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Re: Eight Levels of Verification for the Gospels

Post by Metacrock » Tue Oct 03, 2017 1:47 am

I am not sure Crosson says empty tomb is made up, he says women were made up but he accepts an event. Paul is writing before the Gospels so women right not have been famous to the whole checker that way at that time, Paul is more engaged with the James church so reflects James' account,
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