Did not Peter recently advise that we should 'assume good faith'...Sorry, this guy's work is less than worthless. Its all laughable. Illogical, baseless, apriori assumptions. What a joke.
Just look at his stupid arguments. He is simply taking these texts at face value, with zero understanding of their development, no acknowledgment of the literary relationships between the texts, no concept of how the narratives originated, no concept of the allegorical and symbolic meaning of the narrative. He takes one line in v18:12 out of context, then ignores the entire rest of the trial account that says Pilate tried to free him and avoid charging him and says, "Oh since the writer said there was a detachment of soldiers with a commander, this narrative is pinning the blame on Pilate!" Even though the next 20 lines make explicitly clear that this isn't the case.
All of these claims about, "Oh X writer couldn't have said that unless it was true, because they would be too afraid to say it otherwise!" This is just total nonsense. The perfect example is the fact that every single Gospel, including John, says that Peter denied and abandoned Jesus. And what do the idiotic theologians and those who follow them say? Oh, this must be a true account, because otherwise Christians wouldn't have said this since it was embarrassing to their apostle, so it must be true!
Never mind the fact that a critical analysis of the Gospel of Mark indicates that the narrative was written by someone who sought to discredit Peter, following statements made in the Pauline letters about Paul's conflicts with Peter. So the reason that the narrative has Peter deny and abandon Jesus isn't because "it was true", its because that was the agenda of the Pauline writer who clearly believed that Paul was the one and only true apostle, as we know many of the early sects did. The fact that every other Gospel also includes this scene about Peter denying and abandoning Jesus only shows that none of the other writers knew anything real about Jesus, they were all just copying from the first Gospel and tweaking it to suit their needs. Many of the later writers softened the break between Jesus and Peter, but it is clear that the first writer invented the entire plot device to begin with and did indeed seek to discredit Peter and the other apostles.
Claiming someone "wouldn't make something up" based on assumptions about their presumed agenda is idiotic. Almost every claimed "scholar" who purports to assess these narratives does so from the starting assumptions of Christian orthodoxy, assuming that the people who wrote these narratives were themselves orthodox Christians. Yet actual critical analysis of the narratives indicates that in fact none of the narratives were originally orthodox and that the original writers did not have the same agendas as the later orthodox editors and readers. Orthodox Christians have massively misinterpreted these works. All of these claims about "truth via the criteria of embarrassment" are actually nothing more than an apologetic ruse to explain away the fact that there are so many statements it the Gospels that are embarrassing to orthodoxy, not "because they were true", but rather because the scriptures are not orthodox in origin, they all come from the "heretical" sects that the orthodox opposed. The Gospels are largely Gnostic in origin and have been whitewashed with orthodox veneer. That's a big reason why there are so many statements that seem embarrassing to orthodoxy.
Again, take any of these morons that engage in this type of nonsensical analysis and give them any number of books of historical fiction and have them apply their methods. They will reach the conclusion that hundreds of known fictions "must have been true!" This is just like dowsing for water or tarot card reading. Its total garbage.the emergence of a tradition according to which there was a Roman initiative against him could hardly have been a fabrication, since it would definitely damage Christian apologetic interests
Where is the proof of this? This is just an entirely baseless claim made on baseless assumptions. There is not one single piece of evidence to support this nonsense. First, prove that anyone in the first four centuries interpreted v18:12 as indicating that, "there was a Roman initiative against him". Firstly support the claim that ANYONE read this and saw it as evidence that the Romans were out to get Jesus. Show me an example. Why would this passage even necessitate that reading?
Secondly, prove that the original writer of this particular passage (keep in mind that John is a revised composite work with at least three layers of writing), would not have wanted to implicate the Romans? I'm not saying this passages even does that, but why should anyone assume that the wrier wouldn't have wanted to implicate the Romans? We know there were "Jewish" Christian sects early on. How do we know that this layer of the text hadn't originated among Jewish Christian circles who did seek to pin it all on Pilate? For all we know the Gospel of John was produced by someone who took a Jewish Gospel as his starting point and then re-worked it to make it anti-Jewish and in the process of re-working this scene they overlooked this detail and left the Roman soldiers in, not thinking much about it, but then turned the trial upside down and pinned all the blame on Pilate. This is all hypothetical of course, but clearly the claim that this, "could hardly have been a fabrication" is utter nonsense. There are dozens of ways to understand this as a fabrication, either with the intentional implication that FBR has read into it, or for it to have been made up for other reasons.
Thirdly, where is the evidence that even if it was interpreted the way that FBR is interpreting it, i.e. as a sign of Roman initiated action against Jesus, that such an interpretation would have "definitely damage Christian apologetic interests". Where is the evidence? Show me in the writings of the church father that such an implication would have been damning to their apologetic interests.
As I said, this guy is a joke.
Hardly think the following reflects that advice....
'this guy's work is less than worthless. Its all laughable. Illogical, baseless, apriori assumptions. What a joke.'
Bermejo Rubio's new book is a masterpiece of historical research into the seditious elements in the gospel story. I'm just reading the final chapter - prior to the appendix - and am awestruck by his logic, intelligence and awareness of the consequences of his hypothesis for gospel research.
Statistics: Posted by maryhelena — Tue Feb 13, 2024 10:38 am