Steven, you never seem to have answered Bob Prokop's comment, which he has made over and over, that the novel genre didn't exist in the first century.
Second, your use of the word plagiarism is highly anachronistic. At the present time, we are concerned about intellectual property rights, and so we have copyright laws and plagiarism regulations. But in that time, there was no such thing. If I have to grade someone's paper, then I need to know what in the paper is the writer's own idea, and what came from sources. But Luke, for example, isn't writing his gospel for a grade, and he's not trying to take royalties away from Mark. And although some people have made claims on his behalf as a historian, he's not trying to compete with Thucydides. He's trying to get the story out that he believes to be true.
In our century, we are accustomed to reading books in which the writer learns a lot of factual details so as to provide a realistic setting for the work, but the work itself is a work of fiction. So, if you were going to write a novel about someone who was going around, say, the Far East committing crimes, getting arrested, and escaping, then you might, to make the story realistic, go to the various places in the Far East, and visit the police headquarters and court buildings to find out what their police and court procedures might have been, to put in your story. You would find out how they do things in Bangkok, in Rangoon, in Hanoi, and in Ho Chi Minh City, in New Delhi, in Mumbai, in Singapore, and in Lhasa. Of course, if you were doing this today, you'd have the benefits of planes, trains, and automobiles, none of which existed for poor old Luke.
So, if the Gospel of Luke and Acts were both novels, how did he research his novel? In the words of Andrew Lloyd Webber, Israel in 4 BC had no mass communication.
10 comments:
Bob Prokop writing:
Victor, I’m going to use the opportunity of your latest topic to draw together some of the comments I have already made on previous threads. So for those of you who have already read some of what follows, I beg your indulgence.
First, concerning the term “novel”: Literary historians are generally agreed that the first ever novel was The Tale of Genjii by Muasaki Shikibu, written in Japan the 11th Century. In the West, the novel did not make its appearance until Cervantes’ Don Quixote, finished in 1615. So to speak of 1st Century novels is like talking about jet fighters during the Middle Ages. It’s an anachronism.
Next, concerning “plagiarism”: It is a very modern concept. In fact, until just a few centuries ago, "originality" in writing was considered to be a negative!
Take Shakespeare - the plots for all but one of his plays (The Tempest) are borrowed ("plagiarized") from an earlier source. The same goes for Chaucer. There is not a single original plot in the whole of The Canterbury Tales. Every last one is a re-telling of a story long familiar to his audience. And this practice was universal in literature all the way back to Homer (and probably long before him).
So to accuse the Evangelists of "plagiarizing" the Old Testament is again an anachronism. Try to say such a thing in the 1st Century, and folks would be scratching their heads wondering what kind of a nut you were.
To repeat some of my own remarks:
Are we really to believe that within about 30 years people would become so confused about a fictional story to die for it under Nero. It has been said that Nero was not fair and would not let them off if they renounced their story. But surely after the first few were put to death the rest would have immediately dropped it if they knew or even suspected it was a fiction story. Instead they persevered and later when Pliny the Younger offered them the opportunity to renounce their beliefs they did not. It was claimed that Mark and Luke wrote after the persecution. Are we than to believe they wrote a piece of fiction they knew was fiction after they knew it would get them and others killed. The Swoon Theory and the idea the disciples stole the body seem much more plausible then this.
'In the words of Andrew Lloyd Webber, Israel in 4 BC had no mass communication.'
So how exactly did the Gospel get to Rome, while information about Malta, Crete and Philippi did not?
'So to accuse the Evangelists of "plagiarizing" the Old Testament is again an anachronism.'
Yes, and expecting religious people of that time to write what really happened, ie write the truth, is also an anachronism.
All they had to do was read the Old Testament and Adapt and reuse and hey presto, brand new miracles for Jesus to have done.
But I did like Bob Prokop protesting that all these stories of dying and rising gods were 're-telling of a story long familiar to his audience. '
Guess the copycat theory is alive and well and defended furiously by Christians.
'Are we really to believe that within about 30 years people would become so confused about a fictional story to die for it under Nero.'
Gosh, people died under Stalin - in show trials where they confessed to being members of counter-revolutionary movements that did not exist.
If Nero wanted scapegoats, he got scapegoats.
Just like Stalin got scapegoats.
Does Eric have no ability to comprehend the world around him when he claims Nero would have stopped killing scapegoats if they explained to Nero that they had been hoaxing the public?
Of course fictional works and novels existed in the first century.
Is Bob Prokop claiming that the Book of Esther is a history of real events?
Or the Iliad or the Odyssey?
I didn't answer that point before because I had no idea that there were people who were not laughing at it.
But I see Eric is now claiming that because people in the second century died for a lie, when Pliny the Younger tortured them, people in the first century could not have been lying.
Yes, and Mormons admitted there was no Angel Moroni when they were persecuted....
Paul, who was there , claims in Galatians 6 that Christians were persecuted on the issue of circumcision and the persecution stopped when Christians compromised on circumcision.
So less of the talk that Christians were persecuted on the issue of resurrection.
Paul makes clear in 1 Corinthians that even Christian converts were scoffing at the idea of their god choosing to raise corpses.
Not only were Christian converts not prepared to die for a belief in corpses being raised, they openly scoffed at the whole idea.
Bob Prokop writing:
to Steven Carr: before you laugh too hard, you'd better learn about the distinction between the words fiction and novel. You're just embarrasing yourself.
I did not say Nero would stop looking for scapegoats but if the scapegoats he was looking for were Christians and Christians knew that all they were following was a fiction story there would soon not be any Christians. Only two Mormons were directly martyred and they were killed by a mob when they ran out of bullets and had no chance to back out. But the Mormons never claimed their beliefs where a novel or fiction. If all you mean is the writers of the gospels believed what they wrote and were mistaken you are using the wrong words and still need to explain how they came to believe such a thing. But if by fiction you mean fiction than the Mormons are a poor example because they never claimed their works were fiction.
The Gospels were not "novels" since the New Testament authors' claims were rooted in "facts" and "data" that could be verified.
This distinction between "fiction" and "fact" is something that St. Peter, himself, had used as a major point of commendation for Christian belief:
"For we did not follow cunningly devised fables when we made known to you the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, but were eyewitnesses of His majesty.....And we heard this voice which came from heaven when we were with Him on the holy mountain."
--2 Peter 1:16,18
In fact: all the New Testament authors wrote very sober accounts of events.....events, of which, could easily have had much more pronounced embellishments. Where we see more of the "theoria" is in the writings of St. John (i.e. "The Theologian").....penning his material, not surprisingly, in the Greek language. But, even so, St. John does not omit personal, geographic or historical details that could, in the political milieu of New Testament Palestine, very easily be used to contest the Church's Apostolic witnesses....and, consequently, it's authority.
Let me contextualize this for clarification:
We know that J.R.R. Tolkein wrote "Lord of the Rings" as an epic fantasy (i.e. fable/myth). We also know, or ought to know, that Tolkein brings so much of his "earth-ness" to "Middle Earth". Yet, nobody is claiming that "Lord of the Rings" is a religious document because of our general understanding that "novels" are works of fiction. And, certainly, this notion of "novel", as fiction, very much encapsulates Tolkein's own view---and his readers view, by way of literary and cinematic proxy---of "Middle Earth".
We will not have the good pleasure of seeing James Cameron doing any documentary's disputing the erroneous claim, made by a fundamentalist sect of zealous "Tolkeinists", that there is solid archaeological evidence supporting the theory that a powerful, "magic ring" resides in the ancient, volcanic rubble of Mordor......discovered, ironically enough, in the Earth's core!!!
We do not go looking for Zeus' hammer on Mt. Olympus...but we do go looking for the "Ark of the Covenant" in Arabia. We do not seek the relics of fallen Icarus....but we do seek to see the place of the Crucifixion. We do not need to ask questions concerning "why" Greek paganism died out as much as we need to ask ourselves questions about "why" the Judeo-Christian faith has outlived and outlasted it's once "pagan" peers.
Furthermore, only a person with poor analytic skills and poor literary judgment could conflate pagan "myths" with the New Testament Gospels.
In other words, the Gospel's are intending to "tell the truth", while "myths" simply attempt to entertain an audience. This is the reason why there is an over-abundance of New Testament manuscript copies, on the one hand, and very few copies of any other ancient manuscripts of pagan authorship, on the other.
It is a truism of human nature: people get tired of stories and songs, but people never get tired of truth. So...perhaps it's the "truth" of Christianity which, by and large, explains why Greek and Roman paganism died out.
The amount of New Testament manuscript copies vs. pagan manuscript copies would be a very odd situation, indeed, if our ancient ancestors cared nothing about "truth".....and/or that Christianity was completely devoid of any trace of evidence.
As for the continuity/discontinuity between the Gospel accounts.....well, I think the discontinuities (i.e. the alleged Gospel "contradictions") are sufficient to rebut the entire "plagiarism" claim.
The Gospels were not "novels" since the New Testament authors' claims were rooted in "facts" and "data" that could be verified.
This distinction between "fiction" and "fact" is something that St. Peter, himself, had used as a major point of commendation for Christian belief:
"For we did not follow cunningly devised fables when we made known to you the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, but were eyewitnesses of His majesty.....And we heard this voice which came from heaven when we were with Him on the holy mountain."
--2 Peter 1:16,18
In fact: all the New Testament authors wrote very sober accounts of events.....events, of which, could easily have had much more pronounced embellishments. Where we see more of the "theoria" is in the writings of St. John (i.e. "The Theologian").....penning his material, not surprisingly, in the Greek language. But, even so, St. John does not omit personal, geographic or historical details that could, in the political milieu of New Testament Palestine, very easily be used to contest the Church's Apostolic witnesses....and, consequently, it's authority.
Let me contextualize this for clarification:
We know that J.R.R. Tolkein wrote "Lord of the Rings" as an epic fantasy (i.e. fable/myth). We also know, or ought to know, that Tolkein brings so much of his "earth-ness" to "Middle Earth". Yet, nobody is claiming that "Lord of the Rings" is a religious document because of our general understanding that "novels" are works of fiction. And, certainly, this notion of "novel", as fiction, very much encapsulates Tolkein's own view---and his readers view, by way of literary and cinematic proxy---of "Middle Earth".
We will not have the good pleasure of seeing James Cameron doing any documentary's disputing the erroneous claim, made by a fundamentalist sect of zealous "Tolkeinists", that there is solid archaeological evidence supporting the theory that a powerful, "magic ring" resides in the ancient, volcanic rubble of Mordor......discovered, ironically enough, in the Earth's core!!!
We do not go looking for Zeus' hammer on Mt. Olympus...but we do go looking for the "Ark of the Covenant" in Arabia. We do not seek the relics of fallen Icarus....but we do seek to see the place of the Crucifixion. We do not need to ask questions concerning "why" Greek paganism died out as much as we need to ask ourselves questions about "why" the Judeo-Christian faith has outlived and outlasted it's once "pagan" peers.
Furthermore, only a person with poor analytic skills and poor literary judgment could conflate pagan "myths" with the New Testament Gospels.
In other words, the Gospel's are intending to "tell the truth", while "myths" simply attempt to entertain an audience. This is the reason why there is an over-abundance of New Testament manuscript copies, on the one hand, and very few copies of any other ancient manuscripts of pagan authorship, on the other.
It is a truism of human nature: people get tired of stories and songs, but people never get tired of truth. So...perhaps it's the "truth" of Christianity which, by and large, explains why Greek and Roman paganism died out.
The amount of New Testament manuscript copies vs. pagan manuscript copies would be a very odd situation, indeed, if our ancient ancestors cared nothing about "truth".....and/or that Christianity was completely devoid of any trace of evidence.
As for the continuity/discontinuity between the Gospel accounts.....well, I think the discontinuities (i.e. the alleged Gospel "contradictions") are sufficient to rebut the entire "plagiarism" claim.
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