RE: Josephus and other contemporaries on Jesus
July 12, 2018 at 5:29 pm
(This post was last modified: July 12, 2018 at 5:30 pm by The Grand Nudger.)
I appreciate that you see it that way, but theres no requirement that it be that way...not even in the christian faith. One of the greatest pieces of scholarship done on this story as allegory was published by the anglican review.
Moving forward..to the miraculous details. There are two in the narrative. First off, the usual fodder. Healings. This was a tent revival after all.
That;s pretty much par for the course, but the actual feeding of the multitudes is different on two important counts. We;ve already discussed the theological metaphors..and in this the feeding is far more pregnant than some standard healer routine. It even gets treated as such in the story. "Jesus was somewhere healing folks...and then something -miraculous- happened!". The second..and important difference, is in the nature of the miracle and its relationship to the narrative itself.
Now, it;s conceivable that a large group of people might believe that they have been healed or seen a healing (it happens everyday..somewhere in the south). The reasons for this are profligate. That many people being fed from nothing..however, is not such an easy lift. It;s not the kind of thing people mis-remember. Its not something that can be an issue of misdiagnosis. More amusingly..its not even the kind of thing the crowds would have thought was a miracle....if you;re paying close attention to the story. From their point of view..some dudes were handing out food. It;s only the privileged knowledge of the apostles which makes this miraculous.
This is important to a legendary reading as opposed to a mythical reading.A legendary miracle of this kind would be one with..perhaps..embellishment, individual flair, some composite characters...but in the end, it would be based on some actual thing that people believed they had seen. Later stories based on the stories of that person. A mythological miracle would be one tailor made to fit theology....not necessarily based on anything that happened or any persons actions.
Moving forward..to the miraculous details. There are two in the narrative. First off, the usual fodder. Healings. This was a tent revival after all.
That;s pretty much par for the course, but the actual feeding of the multitudes is different on two important counts. We;ve already discussed the theological metaphors..and in this the feeding is far more pregnant than some standard healer routine. It even gets treated as such in the story. "Jesus was somewhere healing folks...and then something -miraculous- happened!". The second..and important difference, is in the nature of the miracle and its relationship to the narrative itself.
Now, it;s conceivable that a large group of people might believe that they have been healed or seen a healing (it happens everyday..somewhere in the south). The reasons for this are profligate. That many people being fed from nothing..however, is not such an easy lift. It;s not the kind of thing people mis-remember. Its not something that can be an issue of misdiagnosis. More amusingly..its not even the kind of thing the crowds would have thought was a miracle....if you;re paying close attention to the story. From their point of view..some dudes were handing out food. It;s only the privileged knowledge of the apostles which makes this miraculous.
This is important to a legendary reading as opposed to a mythical reading.A legendary miracle of this kind would be one with..perhaps..embellishment, individual flair, some composite characters...but in the end, it would be based on some actual thing that people believed they had seen. Later stories based on the stories of that person. A mythological miracle would be one tailor made to fit theology....not necessarily based on anything that happened or any persons actions.
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