RE: Why can't Christians Verify Exactly Where Jesus Was Buried?
November 22, 2016 at 6:51 am
(This post was last modified: November 22, 2016 at 6:55 am by Firefighter01.)
(October 15, 2016 at 9:37 pm)Firefighter01 Wrote: [quote pid='1411609' dateline='1475957892']
It is my understanding that the entire reason for the assembling of the SOTM was to provide instructions on how to recover from the destruction of the temple (which is well after the Jesus stories, as you would know). It's lovely for Christians and people like yourself to imagine that Jesus gave this perfect speech at the top of his lungs to the multitudes while memory experts took in every word, but common sense tells you that it would have been extremely improbable. But you are convinced it was a great historical event, what more can I say?
Quote:I'm not saying it was "a historical event", stop putting words in my mouth. I said that it's based on the teachings and sayings of Jesus, and based on at least one sermon he gave - probably on a mount, or on a plain, or both. It's irrelevant where and when he gave the sermon. I've seen no scholarly reason to doubt that the SOTM was based on the teachings of Jesus. I want to reiterate my point to you, the SOTM existed as a story before it was written down in Matthew, and it was used extensively by James in his short Epistle. It's not a literary creation of Matthew.
And your whole argument that the sermon was too long for someone to remember is pure nonsense. I've seen people deliver sermons for 30 minutes without needing to refer to any notes, and not lose their place. But the other thing is - who's to say Jesus didn't make use of notes anyway? He could have if he'd wanted to.
Firefighter01
It's relevant if you want to establish him as a historical person to give it geography and a date of delivery. I've given reasonable speeches myself for twenty minutes and Nelson Mandela gave an excellent three hour speech from the dock at the Rivonia Trial. But I'm not talking about reciting lengthy, perfectly crafted literary creations, even though that would be terribly difficult in the open air in a huge crowd. I'm talking about recording it! Blessed are the cheese-makers?? Jesus wasn't exactly known for his writing abilities was he? Drawing stupidly in the sand doesn't count.
