Shortly after the series of videos by Licona were released, I asked him to share Pelletier's master thesis so that I can check his work. To my shock and horror, he refused, arguing that Pelletier wants to develop the research in his PhD thesis and will only publish then. I was also shocked to find that the university Pelletier studied at does not in fact publish all graduate theses. This means that both Licona and Pelletier are making arguments based on research which nobody can see except them! This is in effect no different from them just making up numbers out of thin air. I haven't heard any update on this for TWO YEARS. For example, I don't know whether Pelletier is even a PhD student at this point, let alone when he's supposed to finish. If he decides to drop for whatever reason, this whole thing is just going to disappear down a memory hole but I bet apologists will still throw these numbers around for years to come.
One of the apologists remarks about critics saying Mark just wrote fiction. Well yeah! It even reads like fiction. There's a narrator who describes scenes to the reader that only he would know. Thoughts, dreams, conversations, prayers... these things are given to the reader by the omniscient narrator. No other witnesses needed. Mark almost reads like a play, with scenes and characters coming and going on and off stage for the viewer to take in. Edit: I made this comment a little soon, before the video reached the point where Dr Tabor says basically the same thing.
There is also the fact that mark has 3 endings (why church tradition though keeping all 3 was a good idea is a mistery in itself) shows that it is certainly not an historical account.
And a lot of the characters, particularly Jesus's disciples, aren't even especially well-written or believable persons. Critics of the gospels have long noted that the disciples would have to be extraordinarily stupid, and the way many events are narrated don't comport with how real human beings behave. (These criticisms aren't limited to Mark either) I think Richard Carrier once remarked that the disciples, as written in the gospels, are "dumber than a sack of hammers". They instead largely seem to be used as plot devices to help the narrator make certain points or move the story along.
Joseph of Arimathea just coincidentally having a tomb right next to the crucifixion site is patently contrived. Never mind anything supernatural. That, in itself, is naked fiction.
@@Ken_Scaletta Yup. There's plenty of those. Non-supernatural, but still wildly implausible things which are convenient to the story arc- like the Sanhedrin putting all of their passover preparations on hold (you know, just THE MOST important 'Holy Day' of their religion that they are in charge of) to hold deliberations on some rando upstart. Or Pilate offering to set free a domestic terrorist being held for challenging the Roman government's authority in a region only recently, and nominally under their control (and which descends into open rebellion twice in the coming decades).
Almost as if they have a position and will not allow facts and critical thinking interfere with their conclusion. But, I'm sure they've prayed about it, so there ya go.
And that's why I'm not impressed by the scholarly consensus, how many of them signed statements of Faith requiring them to never reach inconvenient conclusions?
I read the KJV from cover to cover back in '84. I remember finishing Matthew, & then being let down by Mark. I had to force myself not to skim it. At a later time I read the NT differently, & it changed everything. I read the epistles 1st. Then I read Mark before Matthew, then Luke, Acts, & finally John. I wish more people would try this. We need more atheists.
Just reading genesis was enough for me. I tried to be a Christian but after learning about logic, critical thinking and science I just couldn't. I couldn't convince myself to believe a proposition I knew couldn't possibly be true. Hopefully one day humanity will free itself of it's addiction to god claims and religion.
@@_Omega_Weapon I needed to read till Leviticus to be pretty that the Bible is BS. Was not sure about the god thing at that point, but Leviticus was so stupid I was certain none of these rules could come from anyone deserving the honorary descriptor "god", maybe "demon" though... But then again: I was just about 12 years old and had dissociative phases that I mistook for spiritual experiences. So I think given the circumstances I didn't need too long. But I also had no adults around that discouraged and punished thinking outside the box, my familie allways encouraged me to explore things if I have questions. I think it can be hard to even dare trying to really investigate your believes and how they conform to reality, when all the people you look up for, for guidance squash even the tiniest glimmer of critical thinking.
@@hannajung7512 I'm glad your family didn't indoctrinate you like many others do. It's exceptionally hard to think for yourself if you grow up like that. Mine didn't either, and as I developed doubts and questions they encouraged me to think for myself, learn as much as I could and make up my own mind based on the evidence and logic of all types of claims.
It bothers me that when someone leaves a particular religion they become an atheist. It simply doesn't logically follow. A Christian who loses faith is closer to Judaism or Islam or the Bahai Faith, or even just a philosophical theism, than atheism. It only makes sense if their sole and only reason for believing in God was the particular claims of their religion, which I would hope is not the case since what can be known via reason and philosophy (or even innately understood prior to reasoning) differs from what may be "revealed" in a religion. But I am sure reading in a particular order is insufficient grounds for such a loss in faith in the first place. Likely much else was also going on in a cumulative fashion
@@1001011011010 It depends if their faith was primarily in the religious claims or (or in addition) to the specific god of that religion or their own internal model of a god. It may make sense to that individual, and that's fine. As far as what you think is "known" through reason and philosophy, especially innately pre-reasoning is debatable and alot of people never employ such methods to critically examine their beliefs. I don't think most who leave the Abrahamic religions don't instantly become atheist, probably a lot still hold to deism to varying degrees.
You know Dr. Tabor's bit about "Mark is a very common name back then" just kind of amuses me. Mostly because as someone growing up with a certain last name, I was always asked "OMG, are you related to (famous person I am clearly not related to)?!" by kids and such. Because, humans are pattern seeking creatures. And don't like accepting coincidence or anything more unrelated as an answer. Even if it's the most obvious answer. Heck just because I'm a tabletop RPG nerd, I also run into similar sort of "things unrelated are actually related" thinking people swear by regularly. Like if someone has a series of poor rolls on the session they'll either think they're 'Cursed" and will continue to roll poorly, or "due for a crit" and keep thinking that they'll get some amazing dice next time they roll. Even though well.... a roll of a dice is unconnected to any previous or future rolls of the dice. It's just a weird bit of human psychology and always worth remembering when you think you see some "logical pattern" in things like that. Or assuming that there's only one Mark in Judea or the like.
Seeing Mark as the first document trying to explain how to be a Jew in light of the destruction of the temple makes a ton of sense of it. Growing up Christian - or even just in a christianized society - makes yoy forget that there wasn't a light bulb moment for these people where they stopped being Jews and started being Christians. It's a really interesting take, honestly. And it's got me considering reading through Mark again, and considering taking that course
A lot of the texts in the bible make a lot of sense when put in context. Not in the sense that what is written was actually happening, but you start to understand what the author was trying to do, and why. Some texts gain significance (as texts about insights in the human experience) while others loose a lot of it and you start to see the utter childishness behind them. For example the story of Lot's daughters basically raping their drunk father to be pregnant is nothing more then a childish jab against the rival tribes, that are named after the sons born from this act. While parts of Genesis can be understood as the warning that strife and hardship comes from every human has their own moral compass, and that just following one rule for all would be much easier. And that this exact moral compass makes us so often feel stripped naked befor others and cause the wish to hide ourselves and even lie to others. Sure not SUPER groundbreaking compared with later philosophical work and storytelling, but that is like spitting on the person that first tried to teach a system to keep track of cattle, because modern teachers can teach us to calculate how to reach the moon...
I don't get why people think this is a revelational concept, for instance, since Jesus says that when you destroy this temple, I will rebuild it in three days (both speaking of himself and the temple literally) and when he says that not one stone will be unturned, and how when those who are standing in the temple will see desolation coming, they should flee Judea and into the mountains. Whether or not anyone here actually believes that Jesus said these things and prophesied the destruction of the temple, its incredibly obvious that his disciples did and that they saw the destruction of the temple and israel by the Romans as god's final judgment on the nation of israel being poured out on them for not accepting their final messenger and Messiah.
About 180 c.e by the early apostolic father, irenaeus. In fact this is the first time we hear all 4 gospel names. It doesn’t mean these weren’t used earlier, just it wasn’t until Bishop irenaeus names them.
Just wanted to say I’m walking on a beach at night as a first-generation immigrant and atheist, who was raised as a Christian fundamentalist/Christian nationalist, married to one, and now divorced and with a nonreligious partner in my new country. The first thing I thought to listen on my walk was one of your videos. So soothing and cathartic as well as informational. I wish high-school me could see me now. Things do get better and choosing what is best for you is so important. Sometimes that’s religion. And sometimes it’s most definitely not. Thanks for being my virtual cool atheist uncle who supports my rebellion even if the rest of my family doesn’t 🙃
@@HarryNicNicholas In ancient times books weren't produced for sale. People who wanted a book had to pay a scribe to make a copy (contingent on the permission of the owner of the book), and it was very, very expensive. No one but very well off people owned books. A copy of the whole Bible would cost probably well above $100,000 in terms of today's value. Think about it. It would take over a year's labor of a highly trained specialist. Before the printing press most books were produced by churches or universities for their own use. No one even got to read a book without a trusted connection to the owner of the book, because books were too costly to put into the hands of anyone who might handle it carelessly.
@@donnievance1942if anyone wants to learn more about that era but especially the western world of "sciensia" and "natural philosophy" in the dawning light of widespread print- highly recommend Eamon, "Science and the Secrets of Nature"
11:27 "What would you say to a person who says that really all we have is Papias and the others just got their information from him." - "The burden of proof is on them." WHAT? No, the burden is on YOU. Multiple attestation has no more evidential value than a single attestation unless it's established as mutually independent. And it's supposed to be established by YOU. Because it's YOU who's making the argument. And needless to say we positively do know that all the other authors Licona names (Irenaeus, Clement of Alexandria, Tertullian) either read Papias or each other because they say so in their own works.
Absolutely. And that is especially true when the multiple writers are all writing at a time remote from the issue in question. In the case of Papias there is at least an imputed chain of connection back to the source. With those others, that is not the case in my understanding. But you see other Christians in these comments relying on shifting the burden of proof. "You can't prove that the Gospel writers weren't the ones named." And this is in spite of the fact that no one is claiming to prove that. They can't seem to grasp the fact that one is justified in believing something only when it has received some substantiation, not just because one wants to believe it and it hasn't been disproven. That's actually the essence of Christian-think.
"Since 1965", that's quite some data, I wonder if they've done any trend analysis on it, as to whether it's trending for or against their conclusion of traditional authorship or connection to Peter. It may well be that it is 60% overall but started off with a much higher percentage in 1965 and is now below that figure. This is why stats like that are meaningless without the data to interrogate.
24:53 This explanation of the Book of Mark is really enlightening. I'm an atheist, but I'm interested in Christianity as theology/mythology, and as someone who was raised in the church. One thing that strikes me as I actually learn about what Jesus says is that he seems to convey very different messaging from what is told in church. In many ways, his early story mirrors that of other ascetics, who find enlightenment in the desert, etc. And in all of my teachings, it's never really clear what Jesus means by 'Son of God'. Is this a literal statement? Or more of a spiritual understanding of what humanity is, or how we relate to the universe we're in? Jesus says things like 'follow me, I am the way'. And I think that the way the gospels are written, and how it's taught through the lens of the church, the focus in on the "me", the messiah, with the statement implying that he's always speaking about his enlightenment through this other entity, basically YHWH, a personal (personified) God figure that he is the son of, and he's been sent by that one entity to save us. And that his proclamations are a literal sort of truth. But, what if he's actually making a more Buddhist-style claim? In that by saying "I am the son of", it's actually metaphorical language for "we are the son's/daughter's of" - he's not saying he's the messiah, but he has the key to salvation/enlightenment if you only listen to him. I'm not special, but I do have knowledge for you. The notion of Jesus telling Peter that he is Satan by calling him the messiah - and in the next passage says “Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me. 35 For whoever wants to save their life[b] will lose it, but whoever loses their life for me and for the gospel will save it. 36 What good is it for someone to gain the whole world, yet forfeit their soul?" "Must deny themselves"...If you contextualize that through a non-theistic, non-dualistic sense - which is touched on perfectly around 30:35 in the video - it actually sounds a lot like a teaching from Buddhism or Daoism. Do as I say not as I do, don't follow me because I am the 'messiah", follow me because the knowledge I have is the path. You are the arbiter of your own salvation through understanding. And that to know oneself is the key to understanding what a self/consciousness is. I think the early Christians interested in starting a church around the figure of Christ could have easily disambiguated the message for practical purposes, and hence you see debates around the many early interpretations of Christ, including the erasure of the gnostics who had a fundamentally different view of Christ, and whose teachings precluded the notion of bowing to a personal God to be saved. In fact that the concept of salvation was basically internal, with self knowledge being the path. Of course the early Christians would want to snuff this out, despite that very concept seeming to be the core of what Jesus teaches. If you read any eastern philosophy, and you understand that apostles and other types of scholars traveled far and wide to learn from other cultures - it would not be surprising to me to learn that Jesus, if he existed, in fact was influenced by other philosophies in addition to his Judaic teachings: Buddhism/Hinduism, Stoicism (in which Paul is thought to have been heavily influenced by Stoicism). However, regardless of what Jesus believes he found out from his experiences and learnings, his teachings are still steeped in the mysticism of Judaism, which has always been problematic for me.
From the very beginning there never was a single interpretation of Jesus message. Paul himself in his letters talks about his own “gospel” as being different from what other apostles were teaching. Difficult to even pin down what Jesus actually taught because the earliest and most reliable source (Paul) never met Jesus. Scholars make educated guesses based on Paul, the gospels and the wider first century Judaism context.
Very well written and an authentically plausible thesis. This is the "cleanest" and most logical way to approach the "christian" "message" that seems to persist in Western culture. Sad that it splinters into so many sects/cults.
Financially support Paul and creators like him, if you can! I try to throw $2 or $5 to Paul and other skeptic youtubers in lieu of doordashing/ubering something every now and then.
Unimpressed by assertions of scholarly consensus, how many of them had to sign statements of Faith forbidding them from reaching inconvenient conclusions before hiring?
It seems Christians have a lot of difficulty just saying "I don't know", who wrote the book of mark? You don't know, I don't know, you don't have access to any originals, you don't have access to any signed copies, the author never claimed to be mark, the author ever claimed to be an eyewitness, and the date would have put Mark being something like 60 to 100 years old at the time of authorship, assuming he existed at all.
Hey Paul, I didn’t read what this video was about before I clicked on, but as soon as I saw your figure of the guest, I knew who it was! That little guy in the right bottom corner, was spot on! Kudos
"on him" Object of the preposition "on." One never says "on he..." "...one who makes a claim" is simply a modifier of "him." There is nothing about it that would change it to the subjective case. In the absence of any abstract analysis, one can simply test such constructions by dropping the modifier and hearing if it sounds weird. You would never say, "The burden of proof is on he." Similarly with instances like this: "Jane was getting ready to go to the movies with me when Harry dropped by. So Harry came along with she and I." No-- "Harry came along with her and me." It fails the weirdness test to say "with she" or "with I." And it's wrong. People seem to adopt these constructions because their very weirdness makes them think that they're some kind of classy elite usage.
Yes, the disciples being 'dumb as hammers' always bothered me. Or the chorus of people all speaking in one voice. Because I thought it was history, I never thought to look at it as literature.
Years ago I had a class where we translated Mark from the original Greek. As the Greeks had no punctuation and spacing it was hard. Human can mistranslate many of the ancient texts. We even noted how the "voice" of the narrative changed after the crucifixion.
Really interesting to have Dr Tabor responding to this apologetic video on GMark, rather than just interviewing him like the other channels. Nice work. I'm looking forward to Dr Tabors course. I'm slightly stuck just now because he requires you to reread GMark to start the coursez and of course I had to read it along with Steve Mason's commentary, and Dale Martin's lecture and I have to check a load of stuff in the Greek interlinear. And reread Daniel too. No point doing it by halves!
I’ve watched a couple of these recent RUclips videos where Prof. Tabor is a guest promoting his course study of Mark, and I think this one with his interview by Paulogia has convinced me to sign up. Good times.
Something should be done to differentiate a diploma from a statement of faith college and a college that does not have one. This should at least be done with biblical degrees that are academic in nature in relation to the bible and critical accurate scholarship.
"If I only include authors who are of a background where they are undeniably more likely to bias to Christian believers, there are more people who are pro-Christian orthodoxy of its early history." Gee, surprise! And as the points made in the video by your guest speaker, Dr Tabor, the number of people who agree on something says very little as to whether that thing is accurate. I don't do textual analysis but I've done my fair share of literature reviews and it is, again as said by your guest, the methodology of the work undertaken in many cases that means more than just a weight of numbers of sources which agree with each other in these types of low evidence fields.
I asked several attendees of Clown College, which entertainers are the funniest, and, overwhelmingly, clowns came out on top. Sorry standup comics, you lose!
I am confused why a PhD student would not translate foreign authors. Especially in the era of google translate. Is this actual investigating the topic or merely gathering convenient data?
Yeah some knowledge of French and German is usually required at least for Near Eastern Studies since that is what a lot of the scholarship is published in. Not sure if that applies to NT scholars as well.
@@robertt9342 Exaclty. When I was in grad school, if we had articles in foreign languages, I did the translation as much by hand as I could (even if I didn't know the language at all, I could sit with a dico) but otherwise I would consult with someone who knew it. You can't just ignore it because it isn't english.
@@Julian0101 I found 500 eyewitnesses that saw the 420 scholars that supported the conclusion that there were 207 scholars. I don't know why she swallowed the fly...
I wonder why they picked 1965 as a starting point for papers. I would think people might have learned some things post 2000. Maybe take the last 15 years. Also, maybe each paper/author should not be weighted equivalently. Maybe weight papers by number of citations? Of course, if you are just looking for things to match a predetermined conclusion, different methods would be used…
When I was in school we were supposed to use sources only from the last 10 years, to make sure we were getting new ideas about things and not old ones that had already been debunked.
Enjoyed the analysis and loved the positioning of Mark that James explained. You don’t get that in church. Or at least I didn’t. BTW very good caricature!!
@@Paulogia Neither have I. I searched ProQuest and it wasn’t there, unfortunately. I don’t know if you have a good relationship with Mike, but if you do it’d be awesome to reach out and see if he’s willing to ask Josh to share.
something just popped into my head - are we god's sole purpose? are humans the goal? i was remarking that if DNA indicates that life is a bzillion to one chance, that indicates god used the least likely way to achieve his desired outcome, but this assumes humans are the desired outcome, how do we know WE are the "desired result", maybe god wanted hyenas.
What get me is that the same people who want us to live as livestock for a god that doesn’t want humans to use are “gifts” to learn are also the same that think we are better than animals.
You are being tricked by Scientism. DNA was planted by Satan to fool us into thinking evolution is real. It is one of the longest played, most elaborate pranks ever. Ashton Kutcher would be proud of how Satan has punked us. We are all made perfectly by God, except for the ones born dead, or with birth defects, or congenital diseases, or the propensity to develop diseases, and our vestigial parts, and our striking similarity to other animals. God is just winning every day- so much winning! - edited due to annoying autocorrection and poor proofreading. -
Origen attributed Mark’s Gospel to Peter Eusebius (Ecclesiastical History Book 6 Chapter 25) quoted a Gospel Commentary written by Origen (an early church father and theologian who lived 185-254 AD) that explains the origin of the Gospels. This commentary also attributes the Gospel of Mark to Peter: “In his first book on Matthew’s Gospel, maintaining the Canon of the Church, he testifies that he knows only four Gospels, writing as follows: Among the four Gospels, which are the only indisputable ones in the Church of God under heaven, I have learned by tradition that the first was written by Matthew, who was once a publican, but afterwards an apostle of Jesus Christ, and it was prepared for the converts from Judaism, and published in the Hebrew language. The second is by Mark, who composed it according to the instructions of Peter, who in his Catholic epistle acknowledges him as a son, saying, ‘The church that is at Babylon elected together with you, salutes you, and so does Marcus, my son.’ 1 Peter 5:13 And the third by Luke, the Gospel commended by Paul, and composed for Gentile converts. Last of all that by John.”
It's reasonable to believe what has been passed down to us (2 Tim. 3:14) regarding the authorship of the so-called second Gospel. Marcus (Mark) is the only Gospel that mentions that Petros (Peter) ran away naked (Marcus 14:51-52). Petros evidently told Marcus about that incident. We know from the Synoptic Gospels that it was Petros who chopped off the servant of the High Priest's ear - Malech [Malchos] (Marcus 14:47; Jn. 18:10-11). The cohort [band of soldiers] (Jn 18:3) or cops would have tried to arrest him; so he stripped himself of his underwear [i.e. tunic] & ran away (escaped) butt naked (Marcus 14:51-52).
"The beginning of the Gospel of Yeshua the Anointed One, the Son of God." (Marcus 1:1 P'shitta). The Gospel by Marcus could have been the first Gospel written by that statement alone. Moreover, the fact that it is the shortest Gospel & may have originally lacked a proper ending - i.e. (Mk. 16:9-20); could also be indicative of that. If we accept that all Scripture was written by [the inspiration of] the Spirit of God (2 Tim. 3:16) then the narrations were of substance to be included in the other Gospels. Since not all the words are the same, that could also indicate the inspiration of the authors. Or God may have had the authors of the other Gospels use Marcus ' Gospel as a source text for theirs. Every scholar uses source material, data & scholarly works for their endeavors. Maybe John Mark was among the seventy other Students & Apostles sent out by Isho [Yeshua] (Lucas 10:1).
*All we have are, men "speaking for Jesus".* There are _"no first person statements from Jesus in the Bible",_ only words that _"others claimed he said"_ (Faith in the Bible = "faith in man")
Surely you should drill down into any data collected. E.g. 1. What did scholars who were required to commit to biblical inerrancy say? 2. What did scholars who were not required to commit to biblical inerrant say?
While the "by a 2 to 1 ratio" is problematic in its own right, I have a major question as to the TRENDING of those scholars: Has the ratio remained consistent over the past 57 years, or has it been trending towards "Mark" being anonymous? We know that for a VERY long time, the authorship simply wasn't challenged, not until quite recently. As such, it would be reasonably to exist that older "scholars" still held to the earlier tradition, but that more recent "scholars" would move towards accepting the anonymity hypothesis. As such, "2:1 ratio" may be true, while failing to acknowledge this reality, in order to hold on to "Mark".
If Matthew and Luke, each independently, use Mark though they don't like him (which I think is a very good point), it suggests that there were not many Jesus stories available other than Mark. This makes Mark even more key in our understanding of early Christianity, it seems to me. Now I'm not sure whether they actually can be shown to use Mark independently of each other. I know that there are many scholars who believe Luke used Matthew and that there is not even a need to postulate that a "Q" source existed.
"... it suggests that there were not many Jesus stories available other than Mark." Excellent point. That thought was lurking in my subconscious, but I couldn't bring it out into the light of day before I read your comment. That's very compelling, and if that were true, it opens up a whole set of questions about early Christianity, as you say. I'm going to think that one over pretty hard. If Mark were the only substantial source for Matthew and Luke, then the material they added may be nothing but pure fabrication or based on informal oral traditions that would have to be viewed as very sketchy at that length of time. You may know that Dr. Richard Carrier is one of those who do not think that there was a "Q" source.
Near the end it is stated more clearly, there are two stats being discussed and one is 61%, the other 98 of 207. The first mention was misspoken, seeming like the same idea was being rated.
One thing that I always thought was odd about church tradition claiming that John Mark wrote the book of Mark (and used Peter as his source) was that Mark does not mention anything about Peter walking on water even though he does tell the story of Jesus walking on water, while Matthew (to the best of my recollection) seems to tell the same exact story but DOES mention Peter's part in that story. If Mark was getting his information from Peter, wouldn't you think that Peter might have mentioned something about this? Seems like a somewhat strange omission.
If mark quoted JC's own words christians really need to think things through and here is why: Mark 2:25-26 25 He answered, “Have you never read what David did when he and his companions were hungry and in need? 26 In the days of Abiathar the high priest, he entered the house of God and ate the consecrated bread, which is lawful only for priests to eat. And he also gave some to his companions.” It was not in the time of Abiathars' pristhood that this took place according to the OT. Achimelek was the high priest in those days. Abiathar became high priest only afterwards. After all other priests of the city of Nov were killed by King Saul. And to think this was said by JC ! Basic OT trivia !
One thing for sure, the young man running from the scene of Jesus's arrest fits the profile of a skittish John Mark - befitting Paul's early impression. That would identify him as a follower and witness to many of the events he records. And this may have been Mark's clever intention. No wonder Paul later finds him to be quite useful.
Someone once tried to convince me that their definition of Atheism was universally agreed on because he read it from the page of a religoius tilted college... a page that quite specifically made mention that not everyone agreed to that college's own defintion. Some people really confuse me.
Back when I played a few online games, I'd run across people who would like to chat a bit. I can't tell you how many times I've met people who would be like, "I'm off to college soon! I'm so excited! I'm the first person in my family to go to college." I would ask where they were going, thinking it would be like UCLA or something, and they'd respond, "I'm going to Bible College in Kentucky." My heart would sink, because they were studying "Divinity". And we wonder why education in the US produces people who don't know jack when we have "colleges" like this existing.
Certainly makes it feel sketchy. While restricting oneself to any subset of source material is not necessarily suspect, one must be careful about "consensus conclusions" that you can come to. The 1965 and later timeline, and the plenitude of USian Evangelicals with academic qualifications (they seem to be very fixated on propping up their faith through the acquisition of degrees), seems bound to skew the outcomes to things that Licona wants to be true. Afaik, critical biblical scholarship originated in Germany in the 19th century - to leave out a century of scholarship from the originators of the approach really really constrains the generality of the conclusions.
@@js1423 completely agree! Which is why any super restricted paper like this should not have the arrogance to draw general conclusions about consensus scholarship.
Question, if someone doesn’t have the ability to translate these things themselves, shouldn’t there be translations available for a lot of it? With technology available today, I’d expect many scholars who don’t write in English would be available to English speakers.
I find it interesting that Eusebius says that Mark did nothing wrong in writing down single points out of order. This presupposes that there were some who were concerned and criticized Mark's gospel and how it was written.
If Mark was merely just writing random things down in no particular order there's no way it could end up with such a highly-structured narrative. How did they not recognize that?
I think some people suggest that perhaps the Mark gospel that Papias refers to isn’t the one we know today, but the one we have today used the one Papias mentions as a source. That would still give it a connection to the apostles. It’s then what Eusebius said that Papias said that John the Elder said that Mark said that Peter said.
Lol! 6:40 a sampling of religious ''scholars'' with the Christian presupposition simply tests how well Xtian scholars tow the ''company line'', and says absolutely nothing about scholars across the board, let alone scholars without a religious conviction, nor historicity of Mark and attributions accredited to him. What's more, is that this ''survey'', to be charitable, amounts to an opinion poll, hardly convincing, especially if your database consists of religious scholars, scholars who got their PhD in a school with a statement of faith, or scholars who work at said institutions because their conclusions are going to be biased. And if the data didn't entirely consist of religious scholars, but only somewhat, it would still be tainted data, and therefore unreliable. This blunder of Licona and Pelletier doesn't speak well of Xtian ''scholars'', and ultimately demonstrates why they're really not scholars. I wouldn't have made this error even as an undergrad, nor would my class mates, which makes me wonder about who ran the stats. Ordinarily, statistics are run by a statistician, who are brought in from outside the field, or sometimes has no specialization in the subject matter. My point is a statistician would have picked up this faulty mode of operation. Atrocious.
I had a book for teenager basically teaching the concept, that Mark (and certain other parts of the Bible) are about the journey of people from a religion around statues, symbols and sacrifices to an adult spciety that needs neither of these things, just their connection to themselve (or god, the book is purposefully vague on this point, because its about starting to learn asking the right questions, trying a shift in perspective and not about dictating what you should think about something), and how the description of the execution of Jesus as the last sacrifice serves this purpose. It is called "Das Mädchen, der Lehrer und der liebe Gott" ("the girl, the teacher and the loving God", but I do not know if it was ever translated).
In the army I found out there are grown men who will pay good money not to do a woman's work making a tight bunk for barracks inspection. Or shining boots for even more money. I enjoyed being fast with my hands in working hard or ping pong or cooking. I find lazy people miserable in most challenging situations requiring team work or speed. It takes practice to get faster over time.
In Acts 12 and 15 John Mark is around Peter at those times. Which is a good reason for recollection not being in order. Especially with the distraction of worry.
Great video Paul. Thinking about the Gospel of Mark as what it probably actually was, i.e. a text about Jewish traditions written to inform Jews, changes the whole thing... No wonder they needed to add a new ending very early on... they had to Christianise it somehow. Also, Jews would never write about god taking a human form to teach moral lessons and perform silly miracles like turning water into wine...
All apologists are are sales people, plain and simple. They have a product to sell and by hook or by crook they are going to sell it. If you want to know what really happened you can’t go to them for real honest exegesis.
To the methodology: I would have added the author's religious/non-religious affiliation to the analysis, and run an Anacor to see if there is significant correlation between their position on the authorship of Mark and their self-professed faith/not faith. Might be enlightening. Also - you can't say "the majority of scholars" if you only count the literature written in English.
Add to that the religious affiliation of the college the scholar works at. Many Christian colleges have a specific dogma and require all published papers to comply with that dogma.
I was intrigued by the idea of Mark as the first post-temple Jewish document. Given that Mark comes first, I wonder to what extent all of Christianity might be seen as the same thing. The death of Jesus as a final once-for-all sacrifice dovetails very nicely with the post AD 70 reality that there is no way to even make sacrifices. Has anyone developed this thesis? it would be interesting to read about it.
I'm not sure how accurate the defensive wall at 29:20 is. While arrow slots, low on the wall at a convenient height for archers were a feature attributed to Archimedes (3rd century BC), crenellations on the top of the wall (as pictured) are not known to appear until the 12th century AD.
Why do so many of the christian/creationist people insist on saying "evidences". It's still not a word, and I haven't ever seen any other group pluralize it intentionally on such a frequent basis.
I'd prefer Christians to don a suit of plate armor and take to the streets; sword in hand; to defend Christianity. At least then I'd have something to do with my afternoon and menagerie of medieval mauling devices.
When I hear the phrase: "Gospel according to", I hear; "tales according to Borat?". When I hear someone refer to a book as, say; "the carpenters bible", I immediately think; "carpentry by the 3 Stooges?" If someone asks me what I think of the bible, I say; "it's like Monty Python's Flying Circus, but it's not funny."
Shortly after the series of videos by Licona were released, I asked him to share Pelletier's master thesis so that I can check his work. To my shock and horror, he refused, arguing that Pelletier wants to develop the research in his PhD thesis and will only publish then. I was also shocked to find that the university Pelletier studied at does not in fact publish all graduate theses. This means that both Licona and Pelletier are making arguments based on research which nobody can see except them! This is in effect no different from them just making up numbers out of thin air. I haven't heard any update on this for TWO YEARS. For example, I don't know whether Pelletier is even a PhD student at this point, let alone when he's supposed to finish. If he decides to drop for whatever reason, this whole thing is just going to disappear down a memory hole but I bet apologists will still throw these numbers around for years to come.
That is shocking... but also expected.
@@Paulogia Shocking i tell you, shocking!!! In other news water is wet.
I believe this is known as "Habermassing".
Unshared data "no different from them just making up numbers out of thin air"? How very Habermasian! 🙂
@Kamil Gregor have you (or anyone else) followed up? If more of us start asking do you think he will release it?
One of the apologists remarks about critics saying Mark just wrote fiction. Well yeah! It even reads like fiction. There's a narrator who describes scenes to the reader that only he would know. Thoughts, dreams, conversations, prayers... these things are given to the reader by the omniscient narrator. No other witnesses needed. Mark almost reads like a play, with scenes and characters coming and going on and off stage for the viewer to take in.
Edit: I made this comment a little soon, before the video reached the point where Dr Tabor says basically the same thing.
There is also the fact that mark has 3 endings (why church tradition though keeping all 3 was a good idea is a mistery in itself) shows that it is certainly not an historical account.
And a lot of the characters, particularly Jesus's disciples, aren't even especially well-written or believable persons. Critics of the gospels have long noted that the disciples would have to be extraordinarily stupid, and the way many events are narrated don't comport with how real human beings behave. (These criticisms aren't limited to Mark either) I think Richard Carrier once remarked that the disciples, as written in the gospels, are "dumber than a sack of hammers". They instead largely seem to be used as plot devices to help the narrator make certain points or move the story along.
Joseph of Arimathea just coincidentally having a tomb right next to the crucifixion site is patently contrived. Never mind anything supernatural. That, in itself, is naked fiction.
@@Ken_Scaletta Not to mention that many scholars translate Arimathea as ‘Best Desciple Town’.
Might as well name him John Doe or John Q. Public.
@@Ken_Scaletta Yup. There's plenty of those. Non-supernatural, but still wildly implausible things which are convenient to the story arc- like the Sanhedrin putting all of their passover preparations on hold (you know, just THE MOST important 'Holy Day' of their religion that they are in charge of) to hold deliberations on some rando upstart. Or Pilate offering to set free a domestic terrorist being held for challenging the Roman government's authority in a region only recently, and nominally under their control (and which descends into open rebellion twice in the coming decades).
Almost as if they have a position and will not allow facts and critical thinking interfere with their conclusion. But, I'm sure they've prayed about it, so there ya go.
And that's why I'm not impressed by the scholarly consensus, how many of them signed statements of Faith requiring them to never reach inconvenient conclusions?
@@uncleanunicorn4571 institutions that require a statement of faith should not be accredited, simple as that. None of those "phd"s should count
Dr. James Tabor is such an amazing scholar! I love the way you covered this topic Paul.
You do a great bloody job with your channel too mate!
WE are Mythogia. Please collab again.
I read the KJV from cover to cover back in '84. I remember finishing Matthew, & then being let down by Mark. I had to force myself not to skim it. At a later time I read the NT differently, & it changed everything. I read the epistles 1st. Then I read Mark before Matthew, then Luke, Acts, & finally John. I wish more people would try this. We need more atheists.
Just reading genesis was enough for me. I tried to be a Christian but after learning about logic, critical thinking and science I just couldn't. I couldn't convince myself to believe a proposition I knew couldn't possibly be true. Hopefully one day humanity will free itself of it's addiction to god claims and religion.
@@_Omega_Weapon I needed to read till Leviticus to be pretty that the Bible is BS. Was not sure about the god thing at that point, but Leviticus was so stupid I was certain none of these rules could come from anyone deserving the honorary descriptor "god", maybe "demon" though...
But then again: I was just about 12 years old and had dissociative phases that I mistook for spiritual experiences. So I think given the circumstances I didn't need too long.
But I also had no adults around that discouraged and punished thinking outside the box, my familie allways encouraged me to explore things if I have questions. I think it can be hard to even dare trying to really investigate your believes and how they conform to reality, when all the people you look up for, for guidance squash even the tiniest glimmer of critical thinking.
@@hannajung7512 I'm glad your family didn't indoctrinate you like many others do. It's exceptionally hard to think for yourself if you grow up like that. Mine didn't either, and as I developed doubts and questions they encouraged me to think for myself, learn as much as I could and make up my own mind based on the evidence and logic of all types of claims.
It bothers me that when someone leaves a particular religion they become an atheist. It simply doesn't logically follow. A Christian who loses faith is closer to Judaism or Islam or the Bahai Faith, or even just a philosophical theism, than atheism. It only makes sense if their sole and only reason for believing in God was the particular claims of their religion, which I would hope is not the case since what can be known via reason and philosophy (or even innately understood prior to reasoning) differs from what may be "revealed" in a religion.
But I am sure reading in a particular order is insufficient grounds for such a loss in faith in the first place. Likely much else was also going on in a cumulative fashion
@@1001011011010 It depends if their faith was primarily in the religious claims or (or in addition) to the specific god of that religion or their own internal model of a god. It may make sense to that individual, and that's fine. As far as what you think is "known" through reason and philosophy, especially innately pre-reasoning is debatable and alot of people never employ such methods to critically examine their beliefs. I don't think most who leave the Abrahamic religions don't instantly become atheist, probably a lot still hold to deism to varying degrees.
You know Dr. Tabor's bit about "Mark is a very common name back then" just kind of amuses me. Mostly because as someone growing up with a certain last name, I was always asked "OMG, are you related to (famous person I am clearly not related to)?!" by kids and such.
Because, humans are pattern seeking creatures. And don't like accepting coincidence or anything more unrelated as an answer. Even if it's the most obvious answer.
Heck just because I'm a tabletop RPG nerd, I also run into similar sort of "things unrelated are actually related" thinking people swear by regularly. Like if someone has a series of poor rolls on the session they'll either think they're 'Cursed" and will continue to roll poorly, or "due for a crit" and keep thinking that they'll get some amazing dice next time they roll. Even though well.... a roll of a dice is unconnected to any previous or future rolls of the dice.
It's just a weird bit of human psychology and always worth remembering when you think you see some "logical pattern" in things like that. Or assuming that there's only one Mark in Judea or the like.
My father always said "Der Zufall hat weder Absicht noch Gedächtnis" - chance has neither intention nor memory.
This sort of thinking is how casinos make their money.
Marc is a Celtic name I think. Marcos. And if so, it means Pig.
To be fair, you probably are related to celebrities with the same last name. Just, you know, generations and generations back
Seeing Mark as the first document trying to explain how to be a Jew in light of the destruction of the temple makes a ton of sense of it. Growing up Christian - or even just in a christianized society - makes yoy forget that there wasn't a light bulb moment for these people where they stopped being Jews and started being Christians. It's a really interesting take, honestly. And it's got me considering reading through Mark again, and considering taking that course
I started considering rereading Mark for the same reason. It really does make a lot of sense.
A lot of the texts in the bible make a lot of sense when put in context. Not in the sense that what is written was actually happening, but you start to understand what the author was trying to do, and why.
Some texts gain significance (as texts about insights in the human experience) while others loose a lot of it and you start to see the utter childishness behind them.
For example the story of Lot's daughters basically raping their drunk father to be pregnant is nothing more then a childish jab against the rival tribes, that are named after the sons born from this act.
While parts of Genesis can be understood as the warning that strife and hardship comes from every human has their own moral compass, and that just following one rule for all would be much easier. And that this exact moral compass makes us so often feel stripped naked befor others and cause the wish to hide ourselves and even lie to others. Sure not SUPER groundbreaking compared with later philosophical work and storytelling, but that is like spitting on the person that first tried to teach a system to keep track of cattle, because modern teachers can teach us to calculate how to reach the moon...
I don't get why people think this is a revelational concept, for instance, since Jesus says that when you destroy this temple, I will rebuild it in three days (both speaking of himself and the temple literally) and when he says that not one stone will be unturned, and how when those who are standing in the temple will see desolation coming, they should flee Judea and into the mountains. Whether or not anyone here actually believes that Jesus said these things and prophesied the destruction of the temple, its incredibly obvious that his disciples did and that they saw the destruction of the temple and israel by the Romans as god's final judgment on the nation of israel being poured out on them for not accepting their final messenger and Messiah.
I always thought the gospel writers were anonymous and the gospels got their names a couple centuries after the fact.
that is correct... well, a century-ish later
About 180 c.e by the early apostolic father, irenaeus. In fact this is the first time we hear all 4 gospel names. It doesn’t mean these weren’t used earlier, just it wasn’t until Bishop irenaeus names them.
I did not know that. Ialso am far from surprised.
This doesn't mean that the the gospels weren't authored by an eternal god, and weren't used millennia before jesus' holy birth!
_[edited to add] /s_
@@Dr_Wrong It sorta does.
You are very good at this, and the world is better off because of you. Thank you
Ditto.
Just wanted to say I’m walking on a beach at night as a first-generation immigrant and atheist, who was raised as a Christian fundamentalist/Christian nationalist, married to one, and now divorced and with a nonreligious partner in my new country. The first thing I thought to listen on my walk was one of your videos. So soothing and cathartic as well as informational. I wish high-school me could see me now. Things do get better and choosing what is best for you is so important. Sometimes that’s religion. And sometimes it’s most definitely not. Thanks for being my virtual cool atheist uncle who supports my rebellion even if the rest of my family doesn’t 🙃
Watch out for watches on the sand.
Mike Licona is starting his Frank Turek arc
the "buy my book" brigade, it's what christianity is all about. books. bibles started the trend. i wonder how copies paul sold?
Frank turek is a garbage human
@@HarryNicNicholas None.
Because they didn't have books as we know it.
@@HarryNicNicholas In ancient times books weren't produced for sale. People who wanted a book had to pay a scribe to make a copy (contingent on the permission of the owner of the book), and it was very, very expensive. No one but very well off people owned books. A copy of the whole Bible would cost probably well above $100,000 in terms of today's value. Think about it. It would take over a year's labor of a highly trained specialist. Before the printing press most books were produced by churches or universities for their own use. No one even got to read a book without a trusted connection to the owner of the book, because books were too costly to put into the hands of anyone who might handle it carelessly.
@@donnievance1942if anyone wants to learn more about that era but especially the western world of "sciensia" and "natural philosophy" in the dawning light of widespread print- highly recommend Eamon, "Science and the Secrets of Nature"
Been watching Dr. James Tabor a lot lately. Love that paualogia doing a episode with him.
11:27 "What would you say to a person who says that really all we have is Papias and the others just got their information from him." - "The burden of proof is on them."
WHAT? No, the burden is on YOU. Multiple attestation has no more evidential value than a single attestation unless it's established as mutually independent. And it's supposed to be established by YOU. Because it's YOU who's making the argument.
And needless to say we positively do know that all the other authors Licona names (Irenaeus, Clement of Alexandria, Tertullian) either read Papias or each other because they say so in their own works.
Absolutely. And that is especially true when the multiple writers are all writing at a time remote from the issue in question. In the case of Papias there is at least an imputed chain of connection back to the source. With those others, that is not the case in my understanding. But you see other Christians in these comments relying on shifting the burden of proof. "You can't prove that the Gospel writers weren't the ones named." And this is in spite of the fact that no one is claiming to prove that. They can't seem to grasp the fact that one is justified in believing something only when it has received some substantiation, not just because one wants to believe it and it hasn't been disproven. That's actually the essence of Christian-think.
*Popularity, only speaks to how popular an idea was/is.*
_Truth claims require more than "feelings", as evidence._
so one out of three people whose career might hinge on saying "yes, Mark is Mark" said no? that... is more integrity than I anticipated.
"Today I'm joined by someone who did a fantastic job learning the things I told him when he was my student. Listen to HIM." 👀👀👀🤣🤣🤣
"Since 1965", that's quite some data, I wonder if they've done any trend analysis on it, as to whether it's trending for or against their conclusion of traditional authorship or connection to Peter. It may well be that it is 60% overall but started off with a much higher percentage in 1965 and is now below that figure. This is why stats like that are meaningless without the data to interrogate.
Once again, Paul, and James, you hit the Mark. ;)
Should we label this approach to secondary literature the "Gary Habermas Method"?
🤣
No, because then you’d have a line of old wives a hundred miles long complaining that he stole their tale.
I prefer Habermashery.
My curiosity concerning MARK has been stimulated: attempting to read now with no presuppositions.
24:53 This explanation of the Book of Mark is really enlightening. I'm an atheist, but I'm interested in Christianity as theology/mythology, and as someone who was raised in the church.
One thing that strikes me as I actually learn about what Jesus says is that he seems to convey very different messaging from what is told in church. In many ways, his early story mirrors that of other ascetics, who find enlightenment in the desert, etc. And in all of my teachings, it's never really clear what Jesus means by 'Son of God'. Is this a literal statement? Or more of a spiritual understanding of what humanity is, or how we relate to the universe we're in?
Jesus says things like 'follow me, I am the way'. And I think that the way the gospels are written, and how it's taught through the lens of the church, the focus in on the "me", the messiah, with the statement implying that he's always speaking about his enlightenment through this other entity, basically YHWH, a personal (personified) God figure that he is the son of, and he's been sent by that one entity to save us. And that his proclamations are a literal sort of truth.
But, what if he's actually making a more Buddhist-style claim? In that by saying "I am the son of", it's actually metaphorical language for "we are the son's/daughter's of" - he's not saying he's the messiah, but he has the key to salvation/enlightenment if you only listen to him. I'm not special, but I do have knowledge for you.
The notion of Jesus telling Peter that he is Satan by calling him the messiah - and in the next passage says “Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me. 35 For whoever wants to save their life[b] will lose it, but whoever loses their life for me and for the gospel will save it. 36 What good is it for someone to gain the whole world, yet forfeit their soul?"
"Must deny themselves"...If you contextualize that through a non-theistic, non-dualistic sense - which is touched on perfectly around 30:35 in the video - it actually sounds a lot like a teaching from Buddhism or Daoism. Do as I say not as I do, don't follow me because I am the 'messiah", follow me because the knowledge I have is the path. You are the arbiter of your own salvation through understanding. And that to know oneself is the key to understanding what a self/consciousness is.
I think the early Christians interested in starting a church around the figure of Christ could have easily disambiguated the message for practical purposes, and hence you see debates around the many early interpretations of Christ, including the erasure of the gnostics who had a fundamentally different view of Christ, and whose teachings precluded the notion of bowing to a personal God to be saved. In fact that the concept of salvation was basically internal, with self knowledge being the path. Of course the early Christians would want to snuff this out, despite that very concept seeming to be the core of what Jesus teaches.
If you read any eastern philosophy, and you understand that apostles and other types of scholars traveled far and wide to learn from other cultures - it would not be surprising to me to learn that Jesus, if he existed, in fact was influenced by other philosophies in addition to his Judaic teachings: Buddhism/Hinduism, Stoicism (in which Paul is thought to have been heavily influenced by Stoicism). However, regardless of what Jesus believes he found out from his experiences and learnings, his teachings are still steeped in the mysticism of Judaism, which has always been problematic for me.
From the very beginning there never was a single interpretation of Jesus message. Paul himself in his letters talks about his own “gospel” as being different from what other apostles were teaching. Difficult to even pin down what Jesus actually taught because the earliest and most reliable source (Paul) never met Jesus. Scholars make educated guesses based on Paul, the gospels and the wider first century Judaism context.
Very well written and an authentically plausible thesis. This is the "cleanest" and most logical way to approach the "christian" "message" that seems to persist in Western culture. Sad that it splinters into so many sects/cults.
This is terrific, thank-you so much. Dr. Tabor is soft spoken but quite engaging. Really delightful to listen to.
Damn Paul, you must be working hard. Seems like you have been pumping out these pre recorded vids and I know they take time
thank you. indeed, it's been busy.
@@Paulogia thank you 😊
Financially support Paul and creators like him, if you can! I try to throw $2 or $5 to Paul and other skeptic youtubers in lieu of doordashing/ubering something every now and then.
@@marcomoreno6748 I'm a member
Unimpressed by assertions of scholarly consensus, how many of them had to sign statements of Faith forbidding them from reaching inconvenient conclusions before hiring?
It seems Christians have a lot of difficulty just saying "I don't know", who wrote the book of mark? You don't know, I don't know, you don't have access to any originals, you don't have access to any signed copies, the author never claimed to be mark, the author ever claimed to be an eyewitness, and the date would have put Mark being something like 60 to 100 years old at the time of authorship, assuming he existed at all.
Simple: Because if they admitted to not knowing, that would mean there would be room for doubt. And we can't have that when eternity’s on the line. 🦞😏
Hey Paul, I didn’t read what this video was about before I clicked on, but as soon as I saw your figure of the guest, I knew who it was! That little guy in the right bottom corner, was spot on! Kudos
Very informative.
Church (or any other) tradition is no authority for anything.
The burden of proof is on he who makes a claim.
"on him" Object of the preposition "on." One never says "on he..." "...one who makes a claim" is simply a modifier of "him." There is nothing about it that would change it to the subjective case. In the absence of any abstract analysis, one can simply test such constructions by dropping the modifier and hearing if it sounds weird. You would never say, "The burden of proof is on he." Similarly with instances like this: "Jane was getting ready to go to the movies with me when Harry dropped by. So Harry came along with she and I." No-- "Harry came along with her and me." It fails the weirdness test to say "with she" or "with I." And it's wrong. People seem to adopt these constructions because their very weirdness makes them think that they're some kind of classy elite usage.
Yes, the disciples being 'dumb as hammers' always bothered me. Or the chorus of people all speaking in one voice. Because I thought it was history, I never thought to look at it as literature.
Wow This was an amazing listen, Thank you guys so much for the content!
Years ago I had a class where we translated Mark from the original Greek. As the Greeks had no punctuation and spacing it was hard. Human can mistranslate many of the ancient texts. We even noted how the "voice" of the narrative changed after the crucifixion.
another informative video once again. Thanks Paul.
Really interesting to have Dr Tabor responding to this apologetic video on GMark, rather than just interviewing him like the other channels. Nice work.
I'm looking forward to Dr Tabors course. I'm slightly stuck just now because he requires you to reread GMark to start the coursez and of course I had to read it along with Steve Mason's commentary, and Dale Martin's lecture and I have to check a load of stuff in the Greek interlinear. And reread Daniel too. No point doing it by halves!
I’ve watched a couple of these recent RUclips videos where Prof. Tabor is a guest promoting his course study of Mark, and I think this one with his interview by Paulogia has convinced me to sign up. Good times.
It's cute that they think that all of those fictional people in the gospels were real enough to write books.
These new thumbnail illustrations lately are damn impressive. Props to you or your artist.
Thanks and Cheers 🥃, Paulogia; all the Best.
Something should be done to differentiate a diploma from a statement of faith college and a college that does not have one. This should at least be done with biblical degrees that are academic in nature in relation to the bible and critical accurate scholarship.
"If I only include authors who are of a background where they are undeniably more likely to bias to Christian believers, there are more people who are pro-Christian orthodoxy of its early history."
Gee, surprise!
And as the points made in the video by your guest speaker, Dr Tabor, the number of people who agree on something says very little as to whether that thing is accurate.
I don't do textual analysis but I've done my fair share of literature reviews and it is, again as said by your guest, the methodology of the work undertaken in many cases that means more than just a weight of numbers of sources which agree with each other in these types of low evidence fields.
Dr. Tabor's avatar is an instant fav!
I asked several attendees of Clown College, which entertainers are the funniest, and, overwhelmingly, clowns came out on top. Sorry standup comics, you lose!
🤣
I am confused why a PhD student would not translate foreign authors. Especially in the era of google translate.
Is this actual investigating the topic or merely gathering convenient data?
Yeah some knowledge of French and German is usually required at least for Near Eastern Studies since that is what a lot of the scholarship is published in. Not sure if that applies to NT scholars as well.
@@robertdullnig3625 . It’s not like you can’t send it out for translation.
@@robertt9342 Exaclty.
When I was in grad school, if we had articles in foreign languages, I did the translation as much by hand as I could (even if I didn't know the language at all, I could sit with a dico) but otherwise I would consult with someone who knew it.
You can't just ignore it because it isn't english.
Great discussion. Thanks for posting.
I found 207 scholars that supported my conclusion.
that's more than Mike and Josh
i'm a scholar, but not of religistics.
I found 420 scholars that supported the conclusion that there were 207 scholars.
@@Julian0101 I found 500 eyewitnesses that saw the 420 scholars that supported the conclusion that there were 207 scholars.
I don't know why she swallowed the fly...
I found 208 that disagree
Yay Paul! A new video!
I wonder why they picked 1965 as a starting point for papers. I would think people might have learned some things post 2000. Maybe take the last 15 years. Also, maybe each paper/author should not be weighted equivalently. Maybe weight papers by number of citations?
Of course, if you are just looking for things to match a predetermined conclusion, different methods would be used…
When I was in school we were supposed to use sources only from the last 10 years, to make sure we were getting new ideas about things and not old ones that had already been debunked.
Enjoyed the analysis and loved the positioning of Mark that James explained. You don’t get that in church. Or at least I didn’t. BTW very good caricature!!
Does anyone know if Pelletier has made his work publicly available yet?
I've not been able to find it.
@@Paulogia Neither have I. I searched ProQuest and it wasn’t there, unfortunately. I don’t know if you have a good relationship with Mike, but if you do it’d be awesome to reach out and see if he’s willing to ask Josh to share.
Who is ready for a Tabor V Licona 🔥
something just popped into my head - are we god's sole purpose? are humans the goal? i was remarking that if DNA indicates that life is a bzillion to one chance, that indicates god used the least likely way to achieve his desired outcome, but this assumes humans are the desired outcome, how do we know WE are the "desired result", maybe god wanted hyenas.
@Move_I_Got_This That just tells us that humans have gotten a little out of hand and strayed to far from the divine perfection that is hyenas.
What get me is that the same people who want us to live as livestock for a god that doesn’t want humans to use are “gifts” to learn are also the same that think we are better than animals.
You are being tricked by Scientism. DNA was planted by Satan to fool us into thinking evolution is real. It is one of the longest played, most elaborate pranks ever. Ashton Kutcher would be proud of how Satan has punked us.
We are all made perfectly by God, except for the ones born dead, or with birth defects, or congenital diseases, or the propensity to develop diseases, and our vestigial parts, and our striking similarity to other animals. God is just winning every day- so much winning!
- edited due to annoying autocorrection and poor proofreading. -
@@InigoMontoya- The only way to tell that this is sarcasm is the fact that you had the wherewithal to go back and edit it.
Based on the fact that the octopus eye is a _much_ better ‘design’ than the human eye, it seems clear to me that octopuses are god’s chosen ones.
Origen attributed Mark’s Gospel to Peter
Eusebius (Ecclesiastical History Book 6 Chapter 25) quoted a Gospel Commentary written by Origen (an early church father and theologian who lived 185-254 AD) that explains the origin of the Gospels. This commentary also attributes the Gospel of Mark to Peter:
“In his first book on Matthew’s Gospel, maintaining the Canon of the Church, he testifies that he knows only four Gospels, writing as follows: Among the four Gospels, which are the only indisputable ones in the Church of God under heaven, I have learned by tradition that the first was written by Matthew, who was once a publican, but afterwards an apostle of Jesus Christ, and it was prepared for the converts from Judaism, and published in the Hebrew language. The second is by Mark, who composed it according to the instructions of Peter, who in his Catholic epistle acknowledges him as a son, saying, ‘The church that is at Babylon elected together with you, salutes you, and so does Marcus, my son.’ 1 Peter 5:13 And the third by Luke, the Gospel commended by Paul, and composed for Gentile converts. Last of all that by John.”
It's reasonable to believe what has been passed down to us (2 Tim. 3:14) regarding the authorship of the so-called second Gospel. Marcus (Mark) is the only Gospel that mentions that Petros (Peter) ran away naked (Marcus 14:51-52). Petros evidently told Marcus about that incident. We know from the Synoptic Gospels that it was Petros who chopped off the servant of the High Priest's ear - Malech [Malchos] (Marcus 14:47; Jn. 18:10-11). The cohort [band of soldiers] (Jn 18:3) or cops would have tried to arrest him; so he stripped himself of his underwear [i.e. tunic] & ran away (escaped) butt naked (Marcus 14:51-52).
"The beginning of the Gospel of Yeshua the Anointed One, the Son of God." (Marcus 1:1 P'shitta). The Gospel by Marcus could have been the first Gospel written by that statement alone. Moreover, the fact that it is the shortest Gospel & may have originally lacked a proper ending - i.e. (Mk. 16:9-20); could also be indicative of that. If we accept that all Scripture was written by [the inspiration of] the Spirit of God (2 Tim. 3:16) then the narrations were of substance to be included in the other Gospels. Since not all the words are the same, that could also indicate the inspiration of the authors. Or God may have had the authors of the other Gospels use Marcus ' Gospel as a source text for theirs. Every scholar uses source material, data & scholarly works for their endeavors. Maybe John Mark was among the seventy other Students & Apostles sent out by Isho [Yeshua] (Lucas 10:1).
Wow! Great video, Paul.
So much hand wringing over who wrote a collection of fan fiction.
*All we have are, men "speaking for Jesus".*
There are _"no first person statements from Jesus in the Bible",_ only words that _"others claimed he said"_
(Faith in the Bible = "faith in man")
Dr.Tabor - steel logic. Thank you .Brilliant
“In a poll without much context, a lot of scholars who are believers confirmed their beliefs.” Not persuaded.
There is a contradiction when apologists claim to be “ critical thinking scholars “ . 😮
Surely you should drill down into any data collected. E.g.
1. What did scholars who were required to commit to biblical inerrancy say?
2. What did scholars who were not required to commit to biblical inerrant say?
While the "by a 2 to 1 ratio" is problematic in its own right, I have a major question as to the TRENDING of those scholars: Has the ratio remained consistent over the past 57 years, or has it been trending towards "Mark" being anonymous?
We know that for a VERY long time, the authorship simply wasn't challenged, not until quite recently. As such, it would be reasonably to exist that older "scholars" still held to the earlier tradition, but that more recent "scholars" would move towards accepting the anonymity hypothesis. As such, "2:1 ratio" may be true, while failing to acknowledge this reality, in order to hold on to "Mark".
If Matthew and Luke, each independently, use Mark though they don't like him (which I think is a very good point), it suggests that there were not many Jesus stories available other than Mark. This makes Mark even more key in our understanding of early Christianity, it seems to me.
Now I'm not sure whether they actually can be shown to use Mark independently of each other. I know that there are many scholars who believe Luke used Matthew and that there is not even a need to postulate that a "Q" source existed.
"... it suggests that there were not many Jesus stories available other than Mark." Excellent point. That thought was lurking in my subconscious, but I couldn't bring it out into the light of day before I read your comment. That's very compelling, and if that were true, it opens up a whole set of questions about early Christianity, as you say. I'm going to think that one over pretty hard. If Mark were the only substantial source for Matthew and Luke, then the material they added may be nothing but pure fabrication or based on informal oral traditions that would have to be viewed as very sketchy at that length of time. You may know that Dr. Richard Carrier is one of those who do not think that there was a "Q" source.
"You're a very interesting editor... with all the cartoons..." Lol, it was cute that you included that.
Wait, did he just say 98 out of 207 scholars is a little over 61%? Did I miss something?
Remember, they're using Christian math, in which 1 + 1 + 1 = 1.
Near the end it is stated more clearly, there are two stats being discussed and one is 61%, the other 98 of 207. The first mention was misspoken, seeming like the same idea was being rated.
One thing that I always thought was odd about church tradition claiming that John Mark wrote the book of Mark (and used Peter as his source) was that Mark does not mention anything about Peter walking on water even though he does tell the story of Jesus walking on water, while Matthew (to the best of my recollection) seems to tell the same exact story but DOES mention Peter's part in that story. If Mark was getting his information from Peter, wouldn't you think that Peter might have mentioned something about this? Seems like a somewhat strange omission.
Yep really weird that some who got the story from Peter would leave out the bit about Peter walking on water when called to Jesus.
If mark quoted JC's own words christians really need to think things through and here is why:
Mark 2:25-26
25 He answered, “Have you never read what David did when he and his companions were hungry and in need? 26 In the days of Abiathar the high priest, he entered the house of God and ate the consecrated bread, which is lawful only for priests to eat. And he also gave some to his companions.”
It was not in the time of Abiathars' pristhood that this took place according to the OT. Achimelek was the high priest in those days. Abiathar became high priest only afterwards. After all other priests of the city of Nov were killed by King Saul.
And to think this was said by JC ! Basic OT trivia !
If you yell in an echo chamber don't be surprised that everything you get back supports your point
One thing for sure, the young man running from the scene of Jesus's arrest fits the profile of a skittish John Mark - befitting Paul's early impression. That would identify him as a follower and witness to many of the events he records. And this may have been Mark's clever intention. No wonder Paul later finds him to be quite useful.
Someone once tried to convince me that their definition of Atheism was universally agreed on because he read it from the page of a religoius tilted college... a page that quite specifically made mention that not everyone agreed to that college's own defintion.
Some people really confuse me.
Back when I played a few online games, I'd run across people who would like to chat a bit. I can't tell you how many times I've met people who would be like, "I'm off to college soon! I'm so excited! I'm the first person in my family to go to college." I would ask where they were going, thinking it would be like UCLA or something, and they'd respond, "I'm going to Bible College in Kentucky." My heart would sink, because they were studying "Divinity". And we wonder why education in the US produces people who don't know jack when we have "colleges" like this existing.
Ohhhhh!!! I was the 1000th like! 🎉🎉🎉
No German, French, Dutch or Scandinavian scholars in Josh’s work?
Certainly makes it feel sketchy. While restricting oneself to any subset of source material is not necessarily suspect, one must be careful about "consensus conclusions" that you can come to. The 1965 and later timeline, and the plenitude of USian Evangelicals with academic qualifications (they seem to be very fixated on propping up their faith through the acquisition of degrees), seems bound to skew the outcomes to things that Licona wants to be true.
Afaik, critical biblical scholarship originated in Germany in the 19th century - to leave out a century of scholarship from the originators of the approach really really constrains the generality of the conclusions.
@@TamaraWiens A lot of important scholarship is still being done in German. The French have also a lot.
@@js1423 completely agree! Which is why any super restricted paper like this should not have the arrogance to draw general conclusions about consensus scholarship.
Question, if someone doesn’t have the ability to translate these things themselves, shouldn’t there be translations available for a lot of it? With technology available today, I’d expect many scholars who don’t write in English would be available to English speakers.
@@Lauren_P_ I guess funding issues within academia
What a bizarre sample: post 1965 and English only. No serious biblical scholar can take this sample set seriously.
I find it interesting that Eusebius says that Mark did nothing wrong in writing down single points out of order. This presupposes that there were some who were concerned and criticized Mark's gospel and how it was written.
If Mark was merely just writing random things down in no particular order there's no way it could end up with such a highly-structured narrative. How did they not recognize that?
I think some people suggest that perhaps the Mark gospel that Papias refers to isn’t the one we know today, but the one we have today used the one Papias mentions as a source. That would still give it a connection to the apostles. It’s then what Eusebius said that Papias said that John the Elder said that Mark said that Peter said.
Lol! 6:40 a sampling of religious ''scholars'' with the Christian presupposition simply tests how well Xtian scholars tow the ''company line'', and says absolutely nothing about scholars across the board, let alone scholars without a religious conviction, nor historicity of Mark and attributions accredited to him.
What's more, is that this ''survey'', to be charitable, amounts to an opinion poll, hardly convincing, especially if your database consists of religious scholars, scholars who got their PhD in a school with a statement of faith, or scholars who work at said institutions because their conclusions are going to be biased.
And if the data didn't entirely consist of religious scholars, but only somewhat, it would still be tainted data, and therefore unreliable.
This blunder of Licona and Pelletier doesn't speak well of Xtian ''scholars'', and ultimately demonstrates why they're really not scholars.
I wouldn't have made this error even as an undergrad, nor would my class mates, which makes me wonder about who ran the stats.
Ordinarily, statistics are run by a statistician, who are brought in from outside the field, or sometimes has no specialization in the subject matter. My point is a statistician would have picked up this faulty mode of operation. Atrocious.
I had a book for teenager basically teaching the concept, that Mark (and certain other parts of the Bible) are about the journey of people from a religion around statues, symbols and sacrifices to an adult spciety that needs neither of these things, just their connection to themselve (or god, the book is purposefully vague on this point, because its about starting to learn asking the right questions, trying a shift in perspective and not about dictating what you should think about something), and how the description of the execution of Jesus as the last sacrifice serves this purpose.
It is called "Das Mädchen, der Lehrer und der liebe Gott" ("the girl, the teacher and the loving God", but I do not know if it was ever translated).
In the army I found out there are grown men who will pay good money not to do a woman's work making a tight bunk for barracks inspection. Or shining boots for even more money. I enjoyed being fast with my hands in working hard or ping pong or cooking. I find lazy people miserable in most challenging situations requiring team work or speed. It takes practice to get faster over time.
In Acts 12 and 15 John Mark is around Peter at those times. Which is a good reason for recollection not being in order. Especially with the distraction of worry.
Great video Paul. Thinking about the Gospel of Mark as what it probably actually was, i.e. a text about Jewish traditions written to inform Jews, changes the whole thing... No wonder they needed to add a new ending very early on... they had to Christianise it somehow. Also, Jews would never write about god taking a human form to teach moral lessons and perform silly miracles like turning water into wine...
Great video, informative, organized and entertaining. ❤
Great video. Thank you.
I guess I always thought "Get behind me Satan" was one of the first gay statements in the New Testament.
All apologists are are sales people, plain and simple. They have a product to sell and by hook or by crook they are going to sell it. If you want to know what really happened you can’t go to them for real honest exegesis.
Wait, we are to trust because of authority, but should deny science and medicine, because...??
I do so love it when used-god salesmen do their sloppy cosplays of legitimate academia.
My PhD in unicorn powers and lifecycle was well worth it.
Mark wrote Mark! Don't worry about the details, they uhh...it's...they aren't important. Critical scholars said so.
Query: Does Kephas (Peter) ever appear in the gospel of Mark - or does the character remain Simon throughout?
Great insight !
Dr Tabor is one of hardest working.retirees there is. The study these apologists are pushing is deeply, deeply flawed.
I can give weight to a vote, but without full details of who and how the vote was done, I do not have to respect the vote.
If you've signed a statement of faith that says you will only reach certain conclusions, you are not a scholar. You are a salesman.
To the methodology: I would have added the author's religious/non-religious affiliation to the analysis, and run an Anacor to see if there is significant correlation between their position on the authorship of Mark and their self-professed faith/not faith. Might be enlightening.
Also - you can't say "the majority of scholars" if you only count the literature written in English.
Add to that the religious affiliation of the college the scholar works at. Many Christian colleges have a specific dogma and require all published papers to comply with that dogma.
I was intrigued by the idea of Mark as the first post-temple Jewish document. Given that Mark comes first, I wonder to what extent all of Christianity might be seen as the same thing. The death of Jesus as a final once-for-all sacrifice dovetails very nicely with the post AD 70 reality that there is no way to even make sacrifices. Has anyone developed this thesis? it would be interesting to read about it.
I'm not sure how accurate the defensive wall at 29:20 is. While arrow slots, low on the wall at a convenient height for archers were a feature attributed to Archimedes (3rd century BC), crenellations on the top of the wall (as pictured) are not known to appear until the 12th century AD.
Why do so many of the christian/creationist people insist on saying "evidences". It's still not a word, and I haven't ever seen any other group pluralize it intentionally on such a frequent basis.
I'd prefer Christians to don a suit of plate armor and take to the streets; sword in hand; to defend Christianity.
At least then I'd have something to do with my afternoon and menagerie of medieval mauling devices.
Finally! All of these trebuchets I've been building as a hobby will get some use.
When I hear the phrase: "Gospel according to", I hear; "tales according to Borat?".
When I hear someone refer to a book as, say; "the carpenters bible", I immediately think; "carpentry by the 3 Stooges?"
If someone asks me what I think of the bible, I say; "it's like Monty Python's Flying Circus, but it's not funny."
This guy is the only Vtuber I respect
Have you ever determined “truth” by a vote? Well, I vote NO.
this is completely off topic, but I wanted to thank you for your “correct” pronunciation of “Tabor” (or at least how my family pronounces it) 😂
At my school we said "bill & Mary"