Fiction or non-fiction?

Fiction or non-fiction?

Historical fiction.

Fiction or non-fiction?

This will be moved to PO in 5, 4, 3....


PS fiction methinks

Historical fiction.

I agree.

This will be moved to PO in 5, 4, 3....


PS fiction methinks



Didn't we already have this "discussion" in PO not too long ago?



joe

Didn't we already have this "discussion" in PO not too long ago?



joe

...Doesn't come to mind...OTOH, I haven't been in/around/near PO too much this spring:eek:

Why do people keep bringing this stuff up in the Lounge?? I want to here about bad bar stories and stuff, not two sides bashing away at each other.

Fiction or non-fiction?
neither.

it's a random collection of myth, legend, fact, fiction, plus the random babblings of some individuals who got all het up on ergot-tainted beer and were mistaken for prophets, leavened with some local code / legislation that's mostly relevant to folks who lived in and around the Dead Sea in 400-or-so BC. all of which was passed along by word of mouth and adapted to fit whatever local society it pertained to until someone around the fifth century A.D. decided to write it all down. so... yeah. there's prolly some truth there but how would you separate it from the hundreds upon thousands of 'edits' its been thru?

Jesus was probably a real person tho. there are folks in the academic world making a whole lot of sense with the proposal that the big gap in his age (he disappears from the Bible between the ages of 12 and 30) simply meant that he travelled to the Far East and became highly skilled in science / engineering / medicine. To any primitive culture, modern medicine and engineering looks a whole lot like magic.

the random babblings of some individuals who got all het up on ergot-tainted beer and were mistaken for prophets.


I'm pretty sure that's what I did last weekend....




joe

it's...METAPHOR. if you learn that conscience of reality and it's description before rennaissance were very different from how we take it today, you understand that it's real but described in a metaphorical way.
men didn't have perspective, for example, to see things(hence the "flat" paintings of landscape) and they didn't also have our objectivity to describe events. it was poetic, mixing nature and a sense of divinity.
the bible is literature. nor fiction nor realistic in the sense of what we call it today.

Jesus was probably a real person tho. there are folks in the academic world making a whole lot of sense with the proposal that the big gap in his age (he disappears from the Bible between the ages of 12 and 30) simply meant that he travelled to the Far East and became highly skilled in science / engineering / medicine. To any primitive culture, modern medicine and engineering looks a whole lot like magic.

I did a good bit of "historical" Jesus reading and I never encountered that argument. The arguement that makes the most sense is simply that none of the Gospel writers knew much of anything about Jesus before he started preaching in his late twenties or early thirties (he was active for about 3 years before his death). Almost certainly none of the 4 gospel writers knew Jesus personally and probably only one was written based on a first-hand knowledge of Jesus' active period. Consequently almost without a doubt the ones that include the childhood accounts were "fabricated" to fulfill Messiah prophecies from the Jewish religious texts. E.g. the whole Bethlehem birth story contains contradictory "facts" in the different Gospels that include it and other facts that from what we know don't jive with history (the census story). But the Messiah was suppose to be of the family of David who's ancestral home is Bethlehem. So if you KNOW Jesus is the messiah but don't know anything about his childhood is there anything wrong with assuming he was born in Bethlehem? To a writer in the ancient world telling the good news almost certianly not. In addition to the birth stories own internal problems it doesn't jive with the whole rest of the Gospels that portray Jesus entirely as a man of the Galilee area.

the bible is literature. nor fiction nor realistic in the sense of what we call it today.

Isn't most of the new testament either Gospels which are a sort of historically word-of-mouth based pieces that were probably written to inform Christians about their profit's life? Or letters exchanged between members of various early Christian communities?

What the heck is 'historical fiction'?

What the heck is 'historical fiction'?

Fictional story in a (mostly) historically accurate setting.

Think movies like Private Ryan, Braveheart, The Patriot, etc.

I started this thread/poll because of something I read in a Da Vinci post. Someone responded that it souldn't be controversial to Christians because the book was fiction. I just wanted to know what people thought of the Bible.

"Almost certainly none of the 4 gospel writers knew Jesus personally and probably only one was written based on a first-hand knowledge of Jesus' active period."

Matthew knew Jesus during Jesus’ three-year mission.

John knew Jesus during Jesus’ three-year mission.

Neither Mark nor Luke knew Jesus personally during the three-year mission. Mark knew Peter, who knew Jesus during Jesus’ three-year mission. Mark learned very deliberately and extensively from Peter.

Luke’s writings regarding the life and mission of Jesus were based on Luke’s research on the topic, including listening to people who knew Jesus.

Luke knew Paul well.

Although not a gospel writer, Peter knew Jesus during Jesus’ three-year mission.

Paul knew Peter well, and one of Peter’s letters includes general support of Paul.

So, this is a group of people who knew each other, and Jesus, well, by association or in person. They are not people who just randomly wrote things with no knowledge of each other or of Jesus' activity.

I wonder if people only associate the Bible with Christians. The Old Testament or Tanakh (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tanakh) is equally at risk of being looked at with similar views. I wonder, do Jews believe their Bible to be fiction or fact?

"Almost certainly none of the 4 gospel writers knew Jesus personally and probably only one was written based on a first-hand knowledge of Jesus' active period."

Matthew knew Jesus during Jesus’ three-year mission.

John knew Jesus during Jesus’ three-year mission.

Neither Mark nor Luke knew Jesus personally during the three-year mission. Mark knew Peter, who knew Jesus during Jesus’ three-year mission. Mark learned very deliberately and extensively from Peter.

Luke’s writings regarding the life and mission of Jesus were based on Luke’s research on the topic, including listening to people who knew Jesus.

Luke knew Paul well.

Although not a gospel writer, Peter knew Jesus during Jesus’ three-year mission.

Paul knew Peter well, and one of Peter’s letters includes general support of Paul.

So, this is a group of people who knew each other, and Jesus, well, by association or in person. They are not people who just randomly wrote things with no knowledge of each other or of Jesus' activity.

Mathew didn't write the book of Mathew, John didn't write the book of John. The new testament was written centuries later and not cannonized for a millenium.

Fictional story in a (mostly) historically accurate setting.

Think movies like Private Ryan, Braveheart, The Patriot, etc.

The answer to your original question is clearly no. IIRC, the notion of fiction writing as a form of literature was not even present when the works of the Bible were written. No doubt even the parts of the Bible which to modern day readers seem silly were almost certainly considered to be real to those who wrote them so in that sense are not fictional at all. Nonetheless there is no reason historians can not apply the same analysis to the books of the Bible as they would to any other historical text to try to figure out what in them represents historical reality.

What I gathered from my readings was that there a few things as recounted in the Gospels about Jesus that almost certainly never occurred, a few "facts" that you can ascribe some sort of probablistic statements such as likely or unlikely to have occurred but the vast majority of historical information about Jesus provided in the Gospels can not be validated or invalidated. And of course there is no way to know if Jesus was the Son of God and died to redeem people's sins, that's something you have to just except on Faith.

A lot of the non-Gospel NT seemed to be most useful to historians to reconstructing the beliefs of early Christians which one would assume also says something about the teachings of Jesus as well e.g. Did Jesus think only Jews could become "Christians"?

"Mark knew Peter, who knew Jesus during Jesus’ three-year mission. Mark learned very deliberately and extensively from Peter."

The books I read admittedly tended to the purely historical ones written by historians (I tried to avoid any where it was clear the author was a Christian trying to "prove" religious points or be an apologist for the historical validity of the Bible). IIRC, this was the only one most Jesus historians thought to be a first-hand account likely written at Rome by "Mark" as told by Peter in the late 50's or early 60's just prior to his martyredom.

"They are not people who just randomly wrote things with no knowledge of each other or of Jesus' activity."

You misunderstand if you think that is at all what I am implying.

Way over simplifying in the answer. I believe much of the bible to be true, both theologically and historically. I do not believe it is to be taken literally, I believe that some of it is a product of the cultural worldview of the men who wrote it as well as the men who for political reasons kept other ancient spiritual texts out of the canon.

The poll sets up a false dichotomy.

The answer to your original question is clearly no. IIRC, the notion of fiction writing as a form of literature was not even present when the works of the Bible were written. No doubt even the parts of the Bible which to modern day readers seem silly were almost certainly considered to be real to those who wrote them so in that sense are not fictional at all. Nonetheless there is no reason historians can not apply the same analysis to the books of the Bible as they would to any other historical text to try to figure out what in them represents historical reality.

What I gathered from my readings was that there a few things as recounted in the Gospels about Jesus that almost certainly never occurred, a few "facts" that you can ascribe some sort of probablistic statements such as likely or unlikely to have occurred but the vast majority of historical information about Jesus provided in the Gospels can not be validated or invalidated. And of course there is no way to know if Jesus was the Son of God and died to redeem people's sins, that's something you have to just except on Faith.

A lot of the non-Gospel NT seemed to be most useful to historians to reconstructing the beliefs of early Christians which one would assume also says something about the teachings of Jesus as well e.g. Did Jesus think only Jews could become "Christians"?

I was over-simplifying to answer Steam's question.

IMO, you can't look at the Bible as a whole, especially the NT. It is a collection of the writings of various authors. IMO, it is similar to those of our FFs and I imagine that if one were to collect and consolidate the writings of the FFs into one "text" it would have problems similar to those found in the NT.

Way over simplifying in the answer. I believe much of the bible to be true, both theologically and historically.

Topical Fresh Air episode ... http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=5401536 Give it a listen and then get back to us. I wouldn't say that it comes down on one side or the other. Just shows how gray everything is in the light of archaeology.

"if you KNOW Jesus is the messiah but don't know anything about his childhood"...

what is known is his mom and brother and apparently where he was born and grew up.

back in the day, people were known by their family lineages combined with where they were from.

nowadays, we don't do this as much.

so, if some guy named dwayne was born in bethlehem, and grew up in nazareth, you might call him dwayne of bethlehem or dwayne of nazareth.

no one ever accused Mary of not actually being Jesus' mother, i.e., he falsely claimed her as his mother in order to stake his birthplace and childhood home as locales that were prophesied. No one ever accused Mary of lying about where she gave birth to her baby or where she and her som grew up.

Likewise, no one ever accused James of misleading people about being Jesus' brother, substantiating a family connection.

Concerning his birth locale and the locale where he grew up, no one ever wrote or was reocrded saying that this guy was a false prophet based on false claims about where he was born in order to perpetrate like he was fulfilling prophecy.

thus, there is something known about his childhood.

it could all be wrong- a fabrication supported by his mom and his brother --but there is not evidence from back in the day indicating that this was an issue of contention with anyone.

Dwayne-

Quote from Dwayne: E.g. the whole Bethlehem birth story contains contradictory "facts" in the different Gospels that include it and other facts that from what we know don't jive with history (the census story). But the Messiah was suppose to be of the family of David who's ancestral home is Bethlehem. So if you KNOW Jesus is the messiah but don't know anything about his childhood is there anything wrong with assuming he was born in Bethlehem? To a writer in the ancient world telling the good news almost certianly not. In addition to the birth stories own internal problems it doesn't jive with the whole rest of the Gospels that portray Jesus entirely as a man of the Galilee area.



There are other points of view similar to yours. (I think that this one is from Burton Mack's book, The Lost Gospel, The Book of Q and Christian Origins, but I can check if anybody is interested). In this view, it's not even certain that Jesus was Jewish. At the time of his birth, Galilee wasn't a part of Israel. If you look at a map, it's way up north. It was a town that historically was conquered over and over by different invaders, because its location was valuable to traders.

As was the custom of the time, its residents just adopted whichever religion was imported by the current conquerers. Not being a part of Israel, it had no Jewish heritage and its residents had no Jewish lineage. So, in this view, it's likely that Jesus was not even born a Jew, never mind being in David's lineage.

There is another point of view regarding Jesus's birthplace:

conveniently edited by a small group of men to maintain power and control over the masses. The Gnostics and the Cathars had it right and were crushed because their belief system didn't involve hierarchical systems

[QUOTE=PJay
it could all be wrong- a fabrication supported by his mom and his brother --but there is not evidence from back in the day indicating that this was an issue of contention with anyone.[/QUOTE]

You'll have to forgive me as I'm not really all that familiar with the Gospels or the Bible in general, what I know of them comes almost exclusively from the historical books I've read.

But again, IIRC, there is no birth story in Mark which is thought to have been written in the late 50s or early 60's, and then Luke and Matthew were written a decade or two later independently but both using a copy of Mark (since they both include nearly verbatim copies of various sections from Mark). So by the time the birth story is written you're probably sometime around 70 AD at the earliest. In all likelihood the people who would have known Jesus as a child are dead by then, almost certainly his mother. Is there any indication his mother became a Christian? Didn't his family think him crazy when he first started saying he was the messiah?

The birth stories of Luke and Matthew are not consistent with one another, nor were the Gospels meant to be works of historical accuracy. They are stories telling of the good news of Jesus Christ. What's it matter if those two authors made that part up, or made up this or that parable to get a point of Christian belief across and placed it in Jesus' mouth at this or that place?

"In this view, it's not even certain that Jesus was Jewish."

Well I don't think any of it (the whole NT) would make any sense if Jesus wasn't Jewish.


"At the time of his birth, Galilee wasn't a part of Israel."

Exactly which is why even if one can some how explain away Jesus being born in the closing years of Herod's reign (which for whatever reasons is taken to be the most likely true fact from the Gospels) during which no Roman census is known to have been taken you're still left with trying to explain why someone from an independent area (Galilee) would have to show up for a Roman census in Bethlehem. IIRC, there was a Roman census in like 3 or 4 AD so the apologists speculate Jesus' father owned land in Bethlehem and had to go for the census. But then when you combine Herod's death occurring in 3 or 4 BC with the date of the Roman census you have Jesus' age during his ministry being off in the other parts of the Gospels (i.e. he would have been in his early to mid-20s when he was active rather than his late 20s early 30s). Again IIRC, the census story is only in one of the birth narratives, the other one just places Jesus' birth there without explanation.

Somebody with a real knowledge of the Gospels could easily point these things out.

I dont enjoy topics like this.

IMHO no 1 person here is qualified to give an answer because none of us were around when it was written.

[QUOTE=PJay

John knew Jesus during Jesus’ three-year mission.
[/QUOTE]

PJay,

I didn't get this at all from what I read. In fact, I read about 3 or 4 different books on this subject and they all pretty much relied on the Mark, Matthew and Luke Gospels to reconstruct the "historical Jesus" (I believe they even had a term for them which I can't remember now) and dismissed John as a much later work. IIRC, "John" was thought to be a native Greek speaker (eg. he doesn't make mistakes typical of an Aramaic or Hebrew speaker writing in Greek as the other Gospel authors do) writing in Greece who had never visited Palestine (e.g. his geography is bad, he assumes Galillean homes were built like Greek homes, which they were not), and most importantly John contains a developed Christian theology which is not apparent in the other Gospels or in the letters of "Paul" (quotes because almost certainly many of the letters attributed to Paul were written by someone else). I also remember finding it interesting that some of the Pauline letters predate even the Gospel of Mark and therefore are the earliest writings of the NT.

PJay,

I didn't get this at all from what I read. In fact, I read about 3 or 4 different books on this subject and they all pretty much relied on the Mark, Matthew and Luke Gospels to reconstruct the "historical Jesus" (I believe they even had a term for them which I can't remember now) and dismissed John as a much later work. IIRC, "John" was thought to be a native Greek speaker (eg. he doesn't make mistakes typical of an Aramaic or Hebrew speaker writing in Greek as the other Gospel authors do) writing in Greece who had never visited Palestine (e.g. his geography is bad, he assumes Galillean homes were built like Greek homes, which they were not), and most importantly John contains a developed Christian theology which is not apparent in the other Gospels or in the letters of "Paul" (quotes because almost certainly many of the letters attributed to Paul were written by someone else). I also remember finding it interesting that some of the Pauline letters predate even the Gospel of Mark and therefore are the earliest writings of the NT.


zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

these religion/bible topics always seem to go in the same direction. Someone should package this on an audio CD as an alternative to Lunestra.

Kinda like Aesop's Fables meets "A Million Little Pieces". With a little bit of mythology sprinkled in.

I dont enjoy topics like this.

IMHO no 1 person here is qualified to give an answer because none of us were around when it was written.

Well of course not but there are historians who look at this stuff just like any other history and can at least inform the discussion.

Dwayne- you're right, I guess. If Jesus wasn't Jewish, maybe the whole NT doesn't make sense. Of course, one can argue that, if Jesus was Jewish, the whole NT doesn't make sense.

I can check later, if it's something anybody's interested in, but.... when I said that Galilee wasn't part of Israel, I guess that I didn't explain myself clearly. It wasn't part of Israel but, at the time that the NT claims that he was born, (IIRC) Israel was the current conquering nation. You can say that it was a territory, but not historically part of Israel and not a Jewish town.

One can speculate that Jesus, for the usual political reasons, adopted the conquerer's religion and "became" a Jew or at least took on Israel's god.

All of this is speculation, of course. But, it does seem to be a credible argument that Galileans weren't part of any Jewish tribe.

Mathew didn't write the book of Mathew, John didn't write the book of John. The new testament was written centuries later and not cannonized for a millenium.

I think I'm accurate in saying most of it was written decades later maybe a little bit a century or so later. And yes as I understand it none of the authors of the Gospels are thought to be the disciples of Jesus of the same names. Apparently it was common in the ancient world to write under the pseudonym of some historical figure or to write in someone's name. Lots of the letters of the NT are attributed to Paul but apparently clearly written by various different people.

I think I'm accurate in saying most of it was written decades later maybe a little bit a century or so later. And yes as I understand it none of the authors of the Gospels are thought to be the disciples of Jesus of the same names. Apparently it was common in the ancient world to write under the pseudonym of some historical figure or to write in someone's name. Lots of the letters of the NT are attributed to Paul but apparently clearly written by various different people.


It was common practice for membes of the different schools of philosophy to write under the name of the school's founder. It wasn't considered unethical or misleading, just part of common practice. That tradition was spread throughout the middle east during the Hellenistic period. It wouldn't have been considered unethical, or even questioned, for somebody a couple of decade later to write under the name of a disciple. Just part of the philosophical tradition.

[QUOTE=utente]Dwayne- you're right, I guess. If Jesus wasn't Jewish, maybe the whole NT doesn't make sense. Of course, one can argue that, if Jesus was Jewish, the whole NT doesn't make sense."

I don't think there is doubt in any scholar's mind that Jesus was a Jew or that what he preached can be understood in anyway outside the Jewish religious tradition and in fact that all of the earliest "Christians" were Jews. IIRC, Paul was nearly killed by the Jewish Christians at Antioch for taking the message to the Gentiles. It was hotly debated whether someone had to be a Jew first (led by Jesus' brother) or not (Paul's view) before becoming a Christian. It's not until a good half-century or more after Jesus' death that Christians start viewing themselves as anything but Jews who believe Jesus is the Jewish messiah.

While many Christians today can view Jesus in a non-Jewish context, historically it simply makes no sense to do so.

It was common practice for membes of the different schools of philosophy to write under the name of the school's founder. It wasn't considered unethical or misleading, just part of common practice. That tradition was spread throughout the middle east during the Hellenistic period. It wouldn't have been considered unethical, or even questioned, for somebody a couple of decade later to write under the name of a disciple. Just part of the philosophical tradition.

Yes, that is exactly my understanding as well.

were around when it happened either. John was the last written, seems to bear more of "John's" language than Jesus'.it also was the most anti semitic in its removing itself from it's Jewish history and the most damnning of Judas using what would become to be Jewish stereotypes.

Jesus wasn't Jewish? What CrackerA$$ religion is that? Sounds like one of those Aryan Brotherhood versions of Christianity. If he wasn't Jewish he wasn't a descendent of David which means he couldn't have fulfilled the prophecy which means no lamb of God, no salvation, no Christianity. I know the bigots and crackers can't stand their savior was Jewish but this has taken it another step past Moromonism.

...no one ever accused Mary of not actually being Jesus' mother.

...Likewise, no one ever accused James of misleading people about being Jesus' brother, substantiating a family connection.

...Concerning his birth locale and the locale where he grew up, no one ever wrote or was reocrded saying that this guy was a false prophet based on false claims about where he was born in order to perpetrate like he was fulfilling prophecy.

Are you saying that because nobody wrote down these objections, that we must assume them to be true? If so, that's some mighty crafty logic.

As for who were Jesus's biological parents (or parent, if you believe in the virgin birth) and where he was born, it was always tradition to invent spectacular (even miraculous) births for heroes. The Greek myths were full of these, the Torah is full of them (the birth of Moses, for one), and the NT could easily be following this tradition. Nobody would question it (except, maybe, tax assessors:) ), because birth myths and creation myths were all part of establishing an ethnic or religious identity. It didn't matter if they were true any more than it matters whether George Washington chopped down a cherry tree. The stories (not the literal truth) were taken as philosophical expressions that groups needed to maintain an identity.

It's a more modern, Western idea to be concerned with the historicity of these stories.

most think the virgin birth of Jesus actually came from Greek translators who inserted their own mythological traditions into the text. Mary was referred to as Alma (young woman) in the older Aramaic transcripts.

Are you saying that because nobody wrote down these objections, that we must assume them to be true? If so, that's some mighty crafty logic.

As one of the historians I read pointed out repeatedly, the Gospel's are not biographies and shouldn't be viewed as such nor were they meant to be historically accurate. They are certainly not complete in any sense of the word. We know almost nothing about Jesus the person and his life even very fundamental things. We know most about what his followers thought were the important teachings of his and his immediate followers some 30-50 years after his time after all this information was being passed on as an oral tradition. I actually find it somewhat reassuring that there was little editing done over time since there are many contradictions in the various Gospels and some decidedly unflattering statements/events surrounding Jesus that surely would have been edited out if a later Christian wished to clean up the image of Jesus e.g. calling Gentiles dogs, the part about his family thinking him crazy (what did they forget the Magi showing up at his birth?).

most think the virgin birth of Jesus actually came from Greek translators who inserted their own mythological traditions into the text. Mary was referred to as Alma (young woman) in the older Aramaic transcripts.


That's one of the 2 common explanations. The other, which I'm sure you've read, is that "immaculate conception" along the way got misinterpreted as "virgin birth." Immaculate conception meant that Mary was born without original sin, and so Jesus was also born without original sin. That's very different from a virginal conception.

as I thought we were all born into original sin. why did they get the hall pass around Adam and Eve?

Adam and Eve is part of the creation myth. Does is have to make sense?

Immaculate conception is part of the birth myth. Why does that have to make sense? It's a story that gives legitimacy to a new religious cult, and sets the stage for divinity.

I don't believe in original sin, so it's not difficult for me to believe that Mary or Jesus was born without it.

the birth myth if used with 'immaculate conception' as free of original sin ties directly to the creation myth. last I checked NO one was free from it so where in the Bible does it say Mom got a hallpass and thus jr. But I agree it doesn't have to make sense, as Gen.1 and Gen 2 have serious incompatibilities. (besides Gen 1 being lifted from the Gilgamesh) (then again I'm kind of the historical ilk that Judaism was an offshoot of Atanism, which would explain Moses' differences with Ramses).

I don't believe in original sin either. All the knowledge of God was IMHO, was how to create (bone down) Adam and Eve learned what their bits and pieces were for, if God didn't want them to use it why put them there. Finally the whole concept of Free Will and an Omnipotent, Omnipresent God are mutually exclusie so either they had free will and sinned as God doesn't do a really good job running things (History will verify this) or God set them up to fail 'cause he's a sicko. (Biblical texts will verify this)

My favorite quote on free will was I.B. Singer's (this is a close paraphrase):

Of course I believe in free will; I have no choice.