09-08-2007, 11:57 AM
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin--> Joe, I wasn't trying to detract from your thesis. All I was suggesting is that multiple accounts of a Messianic figure were only to be expected. The Gospel writer(s) applied their "evil genious" by fulfilling that expectation, and taking it a step further, even in ways that you have discovered. The four Gospels do conspire to make a mockery and a slave of the naive. It is shocking beyond belief.
As far as the Chapter on the Puzzle of the Empty Tomb, this was my critique:
www.domainofman.com/forum/index.cgi?read=2398
You solved this and other puzzles by recognizing something quite unexpected, a delberately constructed inter-textual architecture.Â
Modern critical analysis of Biblical texts has identified structure in those texts that is in fact architectural in nature. Architecture was an obsession of the ruling elite. Steve Mason writes in Josephus and the New Testament (pp 66-67):
"... structural features appear to indicate that he [Josephus] had a plan of the whole [of Wars] when he began writing - much as the earlier historian Livy worked from a plan when he began each five-book segment of his massive Roman history. For example, the first story in the Jewish War concerns the high priest Onias, who left Jerusalem to establish another temple in the Egyptian district of Heliopolis (1.31-33). Although Josephus promises to return to this temple, he does not do so until the closing paragrphas of book 7 (7.420-36). This further raises the question whether Josephus gives his book a symmetrical, concentric structure built around a central pivot or fulcrum. Such structures were common in ancient literature, and all four of the canonical gospels have them, at least in broad outline - most obviously Luke-Acts, with its movement toward (Luke 9:51) and away from (Acts 1:8) Jerusalem as the place of Jesus' death and resurrection, and John, where<b> Lazarus's raising both occupies the center (chapter 11) and also dramatically alters the direction of the narrative.</b>
"In the case of Josephus's War, such a structure is, I think, beyond doubt."
Mason discusses similar literary architecture in Josephus' Antiquities and Life later in his book.
John Shelby Spong's, Liberating the Gospels, is another good overview of what critical analysis has learned about structure in the Gospels.
But, I think what you Joe have uncovered goes far beyond previous analysis by showing conscious interpretive structure not only between the writings of Josephus and the Gospels, but between the various Gospels themselves. Still, I'm not quite ready to call it an ancient I.Q. test. It seems more consistent with what we understand about ancient initiation within cults, and what we know about the caste system of ancient society. To "get it" all, you really needed to have a very privileged "God's Eye" view, that is, to be part of the inner circle of the ruling class.
<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->wiki:Â Â The parable of Lazarus
In the Gospel of Luke 16:19â31, Lazarus is a beggar who lay outside the gate of a rich man, whom later tradition has given the name Dives, who dressed in fine clothing and dined sumptuously every day, but gave nothing to Lazarus. Both men died, and the beggar received his reward in the Hereafter, in Abraham's bosom at the everlasting banquet, while the rich man craved a drop of water from Lazarus' finger to cool his tongue as he was tormented in the fires of Hell.<b> Lazarus is the only person in a New Testament parable given a name; </b>the rich man of the parable has been named Dives by tradition, although the name does not appear in Luke.
<b>
For the last century, "Catholic exegetes now commonly accept the story as a parable... T</b>he purpose of the parable is to teach the evil result of the neglect of others. Lazarus was rewarded, not because he was poor, but for his virtuous acceptance of poverty; the rich man was punished, not because he was rich, but for vicious neglect of the opportunities given him by his wealth."[1]
<b>A Fundamentalist Protestant belief is that the passage is not a parable at all, but a true account, as it is the only story told by Jesus where there is no mention of it being a parable.[2] </b>The meaning of this story is twofold; first, as noted above, the rewards according to the state of repentance of a man's life[3], but also the concept that if one will not listen to the Bible or those preaching it[4], that they would not listen, even if someone was raised from the dead. This passage is key to the doctrine of the power of Scripture to save.[5]
In the Gospel of John (John 11:1) Lazarus, also called Lazarus of Bethany or Lazarus of the Four Days was a man who lived in the town of Bethany ("Lazarus from Bethany, the village of<b> Mary and her sister Martha", </b>John 11:1). The sisters are immediately identified: "Mary was the one who had anointed the Lord with perfumed oil and dried his feet with her hair; it was her brother Lazarus who was ill." <b>So the sisters sent word to Jesus that the one he loved was ill. </b>Jesus tarried where he was, and when he arrived, he found that Lazarus had already been in the tomb for four days, and Martha reproached him. (Jesus had only delayed his travel by two days, implying that even if he had set out immediately, Lazarus would have died.) When Jesus assured her that Lazarus would rise, she took his meaning for the resurrection on Judgment Day, to which he replied, "I am the resurrection, and the life: he that believeth in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live: And whosoever liveth and believeth in me shall never die" (John 11:25â26 KJV). In the presence of a crowd of Jewish mourners, Jesus had the stone rolled away from the tomb and bade Lazarus to come out, and so he did, still wrapped in his grave-cloths. Jesus then called for his followers (friends and family alike) to remove the grave-cloths. The narrator claims many other Jews were convinced of Jesus' divinity after visiting Lazarus, but says no more of the individual. <b>The miracle, the longest coherent narrative in John aside from the Passion, is the climax of John's "signs". It explains the crowds seeking Jesus on Palm Sunday, and leads directly to the decision of Caiaphas and the Sanhedrin to kill Jesus.</b><!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->
As far as the Chapter on the Puzzle of the Empty Tomb, this was my critique:
www.domainofman.com/forum/index.cgi?read=2398
You solved this and other puzzles by recognizing something quite unexpected, a delberately constructed inter-textual architecture.Â
Modern critical analysis of Biblical texts has identified structure in those texts that is in fact architectural in nature. Architecture was an obsession of the ruling elite. Steve Mason writes in Josephus and the New Testament (pp 66-67):
"... structural features appear to indicate that he [Josephus] had a plan of the whole [of Wars] when he began writing - much as the earlier historian Livy worked from a plan when he began each five-book segment of his massive Roman history. For example, the first story in the Jewish War concerns the high priest Onias, who left Jerusalem to establish another temple in the Egyptian district of Heliopolis (1.31-33). Although Josephus promises to return to this temple, he does not do so until the closing paragrphas of book 7 (7.420-36). This further raises the question whether Josephus gives his book a symmetrical, concentric structure built around a central pivot or fulcrum. Such structures were common in ancient literature, and all four of the canonical gospels have them, at least in broad outline - most obviously Luke-Acts, with its movement toward (Luke 9:51) and away from (Acts 1:8) Jerusalem as the place of Jesus' death and resurrection, and John, where<b> Lazarus's raising both occupies the center (chapter 11) and also dramatically alters the direction of the narrative.</b>
"In the case of Josephus's War, such a structure is, I think, beyond doubt."
Mason discusses similar literary architecture in Josephus' Antiquities and Life later in his book.
John Shelby Spong's, Liberating the Gospels, is another good overview of what critical analysis has learned about structure in the Gospels.
But, I think what you Joe have uncovered goes far beyond previous analysis by showing conscious interpretive structure not only between the writings of Josephus and the Gospels, but between the various Gospels themselves. Still, I'm not quite ready to call it an ancient I.Q. test. It seems more consistent with what we understand about ancient initiation within cults, and what we know about the caste system of ancient society. To "get it" all, you really needed to have a very privileged "God's Eye" view, that is, to be part of the inner circle of the ruling class.
<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->wiki:Â Â The parable of Lazarus
In the Gospel of Luke 16:19â31, Lazarus is a beggar who lay outside the gate of a rich man, whom later tradition has given the name Dives, who dressed in fine clothing and dined sumptuously every day, but gave nothing to Lazarus. Both men died, and the beggar received his reward in the Hereafter, in Abraham's bosom at the everlasting banquet, while the rich man craved a drop of water from Lazarus' finger to cool his tongue as he was tormented in the fires of Hell.<b> Lazarus is the only person in a New Testament parable given a name; </b>the rich man of the parable has been named Dives by tradition, although the name does not appear in Luke.
<b>
For the last century, "Catholic exegetes now commonly accept the story as a parable... T</b>he purpose of the parable is to teach the evil result of the neglect of others. Lazarus was rewarded, not because he was poor, but for his virtuous acceptance of poverty; the rich man was punished, not because he was rich, but for vicious neglect of the opportunities given him by his wealth."[1]
<b>A Fundamentalist Protestant belief is that the passage is not a parable at all, but a true account, as it is the only story told by Jesus where there is no mention of it being a parable.[2] </b>The meaning of this story is twofold; first, as noted above, the rewards according to the state of repentance of a man's life[3], but also the concept that if one will not listen to the Bible or those preaching it[4], that they would not listen, even if someone was raised from the dead. This passage is key to the doctrine of the power of Scripture to save.[5]
In the Gospel of John (John 11:1) Lazarus, also called Lazarus of Bethany or Lazarus of the Four Days was a man who lived in the town of Bethany ("Lazarus from Bethany, the village of<b> Mary and her sister Martha", </b>John 11:1). The sisters are immediately identified: "Mary was the one who had anointed the Lord with perfumed oil and dried his feet with her hair; it was her brother Lazarus who was ill." <b>So the sisters sent word to Jesus that the one he loved was ill. </b>Jesus tarried where he was, and when he arrived, he found that Lazarus had already been in the tomb for four days, and Martha reproached him. (Jesus had only delayed his travel by two days, implying that even if he had set out immediately, Lazarus would have died.) When Jesus assured her that Lazarus would rise, she took his meaning for the resurrection on Judgment Day, to which he replied, "I am the resurrection, and the life: he that believeth in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live: And whosoever liveth and believeth in me shall never die" (John 11:25â26 KJV). In the presence of a crowd of Jewish mourners, Jesus had the stone rolled away from the tomb and bade Lazarus to come out, and so he did, still wrapped in his grave-cloths. Jesus then called for his followers (friends and family alike) to remove the grave-cloths. The narrator claims many other Jews were convinced of Jesus' divinity after visiting Lazarus, but says no more of the individual. <b>The miracle, the longest coherent narrative in John aside from the Passion, is the climax of John's "signs". It explains the crowds seeking Jesus on Palm Sunday, and leads directly to the decision of Caiaphas and the Sanhedrin to kill Jesus.</b><!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->