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cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/14119731
Here are two sources I found:
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this post was submitted on 10 Apr 2024
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The mythology of Christianity notwithstanding, people really get hung up on the alleged circumstances of his birth while paying precious little attention to the sermons and practices he engaged in during his life.
Would that everyone believed the Loaves and Fishes story as influential as the How Mary Got Preggers tale.
Well personally I'm aware that literally none of it happened, so might as well have some fun about the most insane parts rather than a simple dupe hack 😉
To be fair there was a census. It just happened much earlier and had no requirement to travel to your ancestor's home.
I love it when a world religion is based on misunderstanding government regulations 😄
Abundant evidence of Messiah figures running around the Levant during the reign of Emperor Tiberius. Whether "Jesus" was one guy or a composite, you're stretching skepticism to assert the Sermon on the Mount as an event that didn't happened.
There is evidence of New York existing and there is evidence of spiders existing. Does that mean I am stretching my skepticism when I say I am convinced that Spiderman does not exist?
Fun fact if you pray to spiderman your wishes will be answered at the same rate as if you pray to Jesus.
I can go to Times Square right now and find half a dozen guys dressed in Spiderman costumes running around. And I can produce a litany of live action video that is significantly more convincing than any artifacts you could produce to prove the existence of Caeser Augustus or Abraham Lincoln or Winston Churchill. Hell, I can even get you video of a guy in a Spiderman costume who is climbing a high rise in Los Angeles right here
If a video of a guy climbing a building in a Spiderman costume was paired with a handful of comic books, and this was discovered in a sealed vault in the year 4024 AD, what kind of conversation would we be having?
Do you have a video of Jesus?
Finding a 6000 year old video of Spiderman would not change the discussion at all (besides questions about modern technology that supposedly is thousands of years old). We do have modern movies that show a Spiderman. Just like those, a video tape of a 6000 year old human spider is not proof that human-spider hybrids exist. It just proves that there are people who pretend to be a Spiderman.
So, stories about Jesus performing miracles can (maybe) be proof of people having existed who claimed or were said to be a Jesus. But they don't prove that miracles are a thing.
The Sermon on the Mount only becomes a miracle when you add in fish magic. Before that point, it's just a story about a guy who gives a speech and covers the tab for lunch.
It's fanfiction about a cult leader at best.
Letters: I am Paul, I am so great
Epistles: James was great
Mark: Paul was great
Matthew: Paul was great we agree let me tell you why James wasn't great
Luke: you know what? Both were pretty great
John: I am going to add a character in the last season to boost the ratings
Revelations: magic mushrooms fanfic
Just because there were Messiah figures does not mean that you get to argue your particular one existed. A class has a population, that doesn't mean X exists or was a member of that class.
We can be very confident that James existed, we have people writing about his school/organization/temple, at least one person claims to have met him, and we have the fourth Gospel whose path very likely came via his group. Now, since we got James we have to ask can we get a particular Messiah figure that was either his brother or so close that people said he was his brother? Any random Messiah figure isn't going to cut it. It's not enough that there were street preachers, we need one connected to James.
And no I don't think the Sermon on the Mount happened. It is likely Matthew and Luke (Sermon on the Plain) were copying from the same source. A written pastoral document that was no where near as well written.
Fortunately, there's a bit more evidence on the table in the form of oral and written testimonials, art objects, and buildings dedicated in his name.
If we're crediting the Gospel of James as a credible record of an individual's existence, I'm hard pressed to dismiss the Gospels of Mark and Luke, which are older and at least as credible.
So we're putting all our chips on "A particular popular rabbi with a large following never got on top of a hill and held a sermon in front of an audience that failed to bring enough food along for lunch"?
And the argument boils down to "I just don't think the Q-document is credible enough"?
shrug
Of all the various parables and miraculous events attributed in the New Testament, I would consider "Guy gives speech to large hungry crowd and then feeds them" one of the least controversial.
Only contemporary first hand evidence. Not what some zealots said nine centuries later.
No. I am crediting Paul since I can't see why on earth he would make up a character like James, I am crediting the Gospel of Thomas as predating Mark and mentioning him, I am also pointing out that we can see traces of his impact in John. I don't need the Gospel of James. Btw Luke just copied Matthew and Matthew just coped Mark.
I don't think the man existed. And even if he had existed and gave that speech I think you are ignoring the fact that the miracle is clearly a reference to the OT story about food multiplication. It isn't that it is impossible to have happened it is there is an easier way to explain where the story came from. Imagine a thousand years from now someone like you is arguing for Spiderman and saying "isn't it possible someone could swing around the city". "Sure but the people at that time had a story about a superhero who could do that so that is where it probably came from".
Cool? None of them happened. Every single miracle he performs we can trace back to the literature that existed at the time.
Again, we have ample documentation from the era to conclude a Rabbi gave a speech on a hill to a crowd
Show it to me. Contemporary evidence only
Which loaves and fishes story, the first one in Mark or the second one in Mark?
What exactly do you think the lesson is in these stories?
Either would do.
Fine. I am going to ignore what textual criticism thinks about those two stories for a moment. What do you think the deep lesson behind them is?
So, the secularized explanation for the "miracle" that I was taught way back in the 1980s when secularizing religion was cool, was that Jesus effectively inspired people in the audience to share their food with one another.
That's it. That's the lesson. Share with your neighbors.
Cool, except Jesus disagrees with you.
Mark 8:14-21
All of them has forgotten to bring bread except one loaf and Jesus tells them not to trust the bread of other groups, reminds them of the two times he miracled-up food before, and yells at them for being stupid.
If the lesson was about pooling resources why suggest it would work again if they are in isolation? Why suggest they don't go to the group that can bail them out? If you and two people don't have food even if you pool resources 0 + 0 + 0 = 0.
If the lesson however is that Jesus is magical and can do whatever he feels like the story makes more sense.
Just a reminder, among prot scholars every time the Bible self-references (like here) that text is considered more likely to be true and important vs when it doesn't. So here we have a guy doing an act and he is telling people the lesson of the act.
He said: “Watch out for the yeast of the Pharisees and that of Herod.”
He did not say to discount the bread of "other groups", much less the very disciples who had come to hear him.
Neither does he resolve the problem with a miracle in this chapter. He simply extols his apostles to understand the lessons of the Sermon on the Mount.
If the lesson was that Jesus is Magical, it wouldn't have been this plea to remember the prior events. He would have simply magicked up some bread.
No, this is a plea towards self-reliance. Don't trust the patronage of these rival church groups. Don't trust the patronage of a hostile government. You must feed yourselves.
So then how does this refute the claim that The Sermon On The Mount occurred?
Read the passage, he does.
What verse says that? Btw, as I am sure you are aware this story is in Mark and the Sermon on the Mount was in Matthew, not in Mark. You totally knew that and you must have forgotten for a second, I am sure.
Assertion not fact.
It doesn't say that. That is what you are putting on it.
Didn't say it did. Well not directly at least. You brought up the loaf and bread miracle (must have forgotten for a moment it happened twice, I am sure) and I discussed it. As a scholar such as yourself knows it is an example of a Mark sandwich story which is the author's attempt to deal with competing oral narratives, but whatever. The point is we can tell the author was willing to lie about small things for this passage which puts in doubt other authors who used him as a source, like Matthew. Short answer no that story doesn't disprove that speech but it does cast doubt on how honest people were being.
You know the 3 miracles are just recycled Elisha and Elijiah food multiplication miracles and the Jesus rebuking them was just Mark trying to talk smack about James+Cephus.
I quoted the passage and he does not.