The Jesus Myth

[angellous_evangellous]

^^now this is funny.
care to elaborate on the certainty of the accuracy of the name of the person the bible relates to when it comes to real life?

Orange.

 

[jelly]

Orange.

I assume you are a christian.

 

[Jayhawker Soule]

I assume you are a christian.

angellous, I bet he says that because your Religion is listed as Christian. Ya gotta admit the guy is sharp! :yes:

 

[Jayhawker Soule]

I wish he'd change his listing. Poor Rabbi Wine must be turning in his grave.

 

[jelly]

angellous, I bet he says that because your Religion is listed as Christian. Ya gotta admit the guy is sharp! :yes:

Do you believe everything you read?

 

[Jayhawker Soule]

Interesting guy by the way. My wife and I met him a couple of times before he died (tragically) and he was an intensely interesting person both at the podium and at the dinner table. I disagreed with him, but I sure wish I had had more opportunities to discuss religious naturalism with him. Under different circumstances he might have been a modern-day Kaplan.

 

[jelly]

Interesting guy by the way. My wife and I met him a couple of times before he died (tragically) and he was an intensely interesting person both at the podium and at the dinner table. I disagreed with him, but I sure wish I had had more opportunities to discuss religious naturalism with him. Under different circumstances he might have been a modern-day Kaplan.

how does it feel to wish?

 

[Willamena]

No. Widespread literacy is a modern phenomenon, stemmed from the idea that poor people are worth educating. It doesn't happen until long after the printing press was invented, and as I recall, it may have shifted during or just after the French Revolution.

The churches were lucky if they had one person who could read to everyone.

Now I need to watch 'Connections' again.

 

[AmbiguousGuy]

Ah, the literacy rate was no different during or after the death of Jesus.

Yeah. I can think of no reason why it would be.

1) There was no need to rush the writing process because people didn't read

If I were there, I'd be extremely excited about putting the story to paper, ASAP. I wouldn't even be thinking about my readers. I'd just feel a passion to write it while it was fresh in my mind.

2) There was no need for writing for something to be considered a valid fact

Ditto.

3) The spoken word was more valued than the written word because the written word was used to deceive

And the spoken word wasn't? Why would that be so?

4) Writing was expensive, and early Christians were poor (for the most part)

So they had to save up their money for 50 years to buy papyri? Really, don't you think this is stretching things, just a little?

5) Maybe most importantly, the Gospels were not written until the apostles and their close associates were almost all gone - that gave some expediancy to the need to have the Gospels codified.

From what I've been (incessantly) told here, the gospels were not taken from eyewitnesses but rather from 'oral stories.'

Are you suggesting that the gospel writers interviewed the witnesses?

 

[angellous_evangellous]

And the spoken word wasn't? Why would that be so?

Because people couldn't read, they could not verify what was written. So they could be decived in all kinds of ways.

If something is spoken, the contract is face to face with both sides fully understanding it.

 

[angellous_evangellous]

So they had to save up their money for 50 years to buy papyri? Really, don't you think this is stretching things, just a little?

No, I don't. People who are living hand to mouth don't have money to save.

And that's just one factor - the high cost of writing is just one factor amoung many.

 

[angellous_evangellous]

Are you suggesting that the gospel writers interviewed the witnesses?

Oh no. I'm saying that the death of the witnesses caused some expidency for the writing of the Gospels.

The apostles and their students weren't around anymore, so their stories were rather quickly codified.

 

[jelly]

Because people couldn't read, they could not verify what was written. So they could be decived in all kinds of ways.

If something is spoken, the contract is face to face with both sides fully understanding it.

so somebody else reads what was written and the writing was accurate but the spoken word was not?

 

[angellous_evangellous]

so somebody else reads what was written and the writing was accurate but the spoken word was not?

It really is entertaining how you can come up with the most irrational and incoherent interpretations of people's writing.

I see no reason to address the question.

 

[AmbiguousGuy]

Because people couldn't read, they could not verify what was written. So they could be decived in all kinds of ways.

If something is spoken, the contract is face to face with both sides fully understanding it.

I've also been told here (also incessantly) that 'oral stories' would go on for years without a single change. So why would face-to-face storytelling be any more informative than those same stories told on paper? I mean, for the stories not to change, they would have to be recited, verbatim. It's not like a listener could ask clarifying questions in a face-to-face recounting, so it seems to me. Do you see it differently?

 

[jelly]

It really is entertaining how you can come up with the most irrational and incoherent interpretations of people's writing.

I see no reason to address the question.

well if I write the word green and you speak the word yellow to somebody else what would you expect?

 

[angellous_evangellous]

I've also been told here (also incessantly) that 'oral stories' would go on for years without a single change. So why would face-to-face storytelling be any more informative than those same stories told on paper? I mean, for the stories not to change, they would have to be recited, verbatim. It's not like a listener could ask clarifying questions in a face-to-face recounting, so it seems to me. Do you see it differently?

I'm not a big fan of "orality" in this sense. Yes, because ancient people supposedly had a better memory - being unable to rely on the written word or computers - they created all kinds of mneunomic devices to help themselves remember truly incredible amounts of information. The oral stories have several markers in them that were intended to be used as tools that help the listener recall the content exactly - but that doesn't mean that they did. The oral tradition is not a printing press.

My point is that the early Christians were not eager to write everything down was because they - along with just about everyone else of their time and place - preferred listening to reading.

 

[angellous_evangellous]

well if I write the word green and you speak the word yellow to somebody else what would you expect?

dookie

 

[angellous_evangellous]

If I were there, I'd be extremely excited about putting the story to paper, ASAP. I wouldn't even be thinking about my readers. I'd just feel a passion to write it while it was fresh in my mind.

Well, you have the advantage of hindsight - there's no way you would have known the historical significance of what you saw / heard while you were there.

 

[jelly]

dookie

that is very true.