The Jesus Data

[RHEMtron]

thought this was an interesting article because of the data used to correlate time vs biblical info. it's something we've all already known, but it was nice to see someone actually write it down.

 

Did Jesus Really Rise From the Dead?

 

 

*a short excerpt from the link*

A legend begins with a basic story (true or false) that grows into something more embellished and exaggerated as the years pass. When we look at the documents of the resurrection of Jesus, we see that the earliest accounts are very simple, later retellings are more complex, and the latest tales are fantastic. In other words, they look exactly like a legend.

 

The documents that contain a resurrection story[30] are usually dated like this:

 

Writer Date Resurrection passage

Paul: 50-55 (I Cor. 15:3-8)

Mark: 70 (Mark 16)

Matthew: 80 (Matthew 28)

Luke: 85 (Luke 24)

Gospel of Peter: 85-90 (Fragment)

John: 95 (John 20-21)

 

This is the general dating agreed upon by most scholars, including the Westar Institute. Some conservative scholars prefer to date them earlier, and others have moved some of them later, but this would not change the order of the writing [31], which is more important than the actual dates when considering legendary growth. Shifting the dates changes the shape but not the fact of the growth curve.

 

I made a list of things I consider "extraordinary" (natural and supernatural) in the stories between the crucifixion and ascension of Jesus: earthquakes, angel(s), rolling stone, dead bodies crawling from Jerusalem graves ("Halloween"[32]), Jesus appearing out of thin air ("Now you see him") and disappearing ("Now you don't"), the "fish story" miracle[33], Peter's noncanonical "extravaganza" exit from the tomb (see below), a giant Jesus with head in the clouds, a talking cross, and a bodily ascension into heaven. Perhaps others would choose a slightly different list, but I'm certain it would include most of the same.

 

Then I counted the number of extraordinary events that appear in each account:

 

Writer Extraordinary events

Paul: 0

Mark: 1

Matthew: 4

Luke: 5

Peter: 6

John: 8+

 

Putting these on a time graph produces illustration 1.[34]

 

 

Notice that the curve goes up as the years pass. The later resurrection reports contain more extraordinary events than the earlier ones, so it is clear that the story, at least in the telling, has evolved and expanded over time.

 

In finer detail, we can count the number of messengers at the tomb, which also grows over time, as well as the certainty of the claim that they were angels:

 

Paul: 0 angels

Mark: 1 young man, sitting

Matthew: 1 angel, sitting

Luke: 2 men, standing

Peter: 2 men/angels, walking

John: 2 angels, sitting

 

Other items fit the pattern. Bodily appearances are absent from the first two accounts, but show up in the last four accounts, starting in the year 80. The bodily ascension is absent from the first three stories, but appears in the last three, starting in the year 85.

 

This reveals the footprints of legend.

 

The mistake many modern Christians make is to view 30 CE backward through the distorted lens of 80-100 CE, more than a half century later. They forcibly superimpose the extraordinary tales of the late Gospels anachronistically upon the plainer views of the first Christians, pretending naively that all Christians believed exactly the same thing across the entire first century.

[RHEMtron]

hey! where'd the edit button go....

[Young Mother Atheist]

I'm glad someone finally took the time to document this as I think it becomes somewhat obvious to those of us who begin to look at the information objectively.

 

Another interesting note that I got from wikipedia online (also might be mentioned in Asimov's Guide to the Bible) is that debate over where the book of Mark ends. As we all know, Mark is the earliest of the gospels and doesn't contain the whole virgin birth story. The current Bible includes a short synopsis of the Ressurection, but there is considerable argument over whether that was added on later. This would leave Mark ending at verse 8 in the last chapter, with the death of Jesus.

 

Great snippet- I plan on reading the whole article later so I hope what I just said wasn't already in there!

[RHEMtron]

another interesting thing is if you read the footnotes within the bible, it say's right there next to the verses that verse 9-20 arent found in the earliest manuscripts... implying that it was added. but of course christians rarely pay attention to the footnotes...

 

*edit*

 

oh yeah... we started a topic on that subject matter on later adds and footnote issues here:

 

http://www.ex-christian.net/index.php?showtopic=8080&hl=

[Antlerman]

another interesting thing is if you read the footnotes within the bible, it say's right there next to the verses that verse 9-20 arent found in the earliest manuscripts... implying that it was added. but of course christians rarely pay attention to the footnotes...

Thanks for adding these references. Visuals are telling. I find how Mark really ended to be telling of the communities mindset at the time of the writing:

They went out and fled from the tomb, for trembling and astonishment had gripped them; and they said nothing to anyone, for they were afraid.

[Misterspock1]

I have made this same argument (though not nearly as detailed) to some of my Christian friends. Perhaps even the men who rewrote them over time have exaggerated other finer points of the story.

 

I think the same thing can be said about the Old Testament. Think about all of the incredible stories like Jonah and the Fish, David and Goliath, Gideon's army, and others. Even Biblical scholars will tell you the Old Testament was passed down primarily through oral tradition, which is the exact same way legends and tall tales develop. Each successive generation exaggerates just a little, until finally the person who writes it down many generations later has a very distorted view of what actually happened. Just watch Braveheart, where they are talking about William Wallace: "William Wallace killed 100 men with his own sword. Cut through them like Moses through the Red Sea." When people think something is great and worth remembering, they will exagerate the story to make it sound even better.

[RHEMtron]

I have made this same argument (though not nearly as detailed) to some of my Christian friends. Perhaps even the men who rewrote them over time have exaggerated other finer points of the story.

 

I think the same thing can be said about the Old Testament. Think about all of the incredible stories like Jonah and the Fish, David and Goliath, Gideon's army, and others. Even Biblical scholars will tell you the Old Testament was passed down primarily through oral tradition, which is the exact same way legends and tall tales develop. Each successive generation exaggerates just a little, until finally the person who writes it down many generations later has a very distorted view of what actually happened. Just watch Braveheart, where they are talking about William Wallace: "William Wallace killed 100 men with his own sword. Cut through them like Moses through the Red Sea." When people think something is great and worth remembering, they will exagerate the story to make it sound even better.

those are definitely some amazing stories alright! the great thing about the gospels is that it's the same story told over a period of time. you can actually see the progression of the number of myths and embelishments of the stories...