Embellishments in the Gospel of Mark.

[Jehanne]

The Q hypothesis strongly argues against there ever having been any eyewitnesses to copy from.  I think that you have in mind an idea that there were two guys sitting around with a stack of books and that's how this stuff was made.

If you see two posts with "life is like a box of chocolates" in them..that won't actually certify that either person ever saw forrest gump (or that there was a forrest gump, or that the forrest gump of the movie had much to do with a real forrest gump if there were, lol).  The same would have been true then.

This is how stories work.

(his name was Sammy Davis, btw)

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-just more to chew on, using the same example above.  If you do watch forrest gump, you'll see a scene with lyndon johnson in it.  How they did that, was to put tom hanks head on top of sammy davis' body.  It remains a fact, however, that forrest gump isn't really based on the historical sammy davis or the historical tom hanks.  Importantly, hanks has said that one of the defining aspects of the charcter, the way he talked, was actually based on a little boy named micheal humphreys, who played the younger gump and had trouble sounding like hanks, so hanks took it upon himself to sound like him.  

This is one of the many ways in which the character you see in the new testament could have been constructed.  No q, no eyewitnesses, no person from which the stories were built in a historic sense, but many stories and many people grafted onto a larger and independently existent narrative.  It wouldn't have been the first or last time this happened.  

Or, I suppose, people can twist themselves into knots trying to make all of this stuff cogent with respect to a fatally misconceived assumption derived from the articles of someone else's faith.

No doubt exists as to the fact that the authors of all of the Gospels (both canonical and extra-canonical) were 2nd or 3rd generation Greek speaking Christians who were not eyewitnesses to Jesus's life, which is why they gathered various traditions, oral and written, to compose their works, all of which paint different pictures of the historical Jesus.

[The Grand Nudger]

They may have "gathered" nothing other than each others works and whatever common anecdotes were popular at the time.  The q hypothesis states, effectively, that there was a group of cynic philosophers, and this movement can be traced back to 500bc at least...and that notions common to this movement formed the basis of whatever various authors attributed to whatever or whomever the gospel authors may have -assumed- to be historical..or just straight up made up.

I think that you might really want to curb the use of phrases like "no doubt exists" and..if the aim is to identify how we might -establish- a historical jesus, try to move beyond the point of assuming one as part of that process. Those two items lead directly to the failure of historians to identify a historical jesus in the first place, or even be able to agree on who it is they're trying to identify.

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Hell, at some point, you may even want to consider whether the question is fundamentally malformed.  When we discuss these things, are we actually working around the history of some man or the history of a story?

The question "how do historians hope to establish the authentic character of the person" may actually be "how do historians hope to establish the authentic motivations of the authors". That's a notoriously tricky one, right there. Authors have been known to sit in on classes with their own work as the subject and watch the lecturer get it completely wrong. Were the authors of those documents actually 2nd or 3rd gen christians, or is that simply the light in which history and culture (and, in this case, interested and revisionist authority - be that the early church or the progenitors of marcan priority and q hypothesis) have cast them?

Did plato really believe in atlantis? Did he really think that we used to have four legs and four arms and two heads?

[Jehanne]

They may have "gathered" nothing other than each others works and whatever common anecdotes were popular at the time.  The q hypothesis states, effectively, that there was a group of cynic philosophers, and this movement can be traced back to 500bc at least...and that notions common to this movement formed the basis of whatever various authors attributed to whatever or whomever the gospel authors may have -assumed- to be historical..or just straight up made up.

I think that you might really want to curb the use of phrases like "no doubt exists" and..if the aim is to identify how we might -establish- a historical jesus, try to move beyond the point of assuming one as part of that process.  Those two items lead directly to the failure of historians to identify a historical jesus in the first place, or even be able to agree on who it is they're trying to identify.

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Hell, at some point, you may even want to consider whether the question is fundamentally malformed.  When we discuss these things, are we actually working around the history of some man or the history of a story?

The question "how do historians expect to establish the authentic character of the person" may actually be "how do historians attempt to establish the authentic motivations of the authors".

I am convinced that the historical Jesus was a real individual, which, as I have stated before, was born in northern Galilee.  The son of a carpenter, Jesus likely suffered from some mental illness, turning in his 20s into a Jewish apocalyptic prophet, who preached that the "Son of Man" (an angel from Heaven) would soon come to destroy the Roman control over Palestine.  Encouraged by his followers, he took his message to Jerusalem, and shortly arriving, went into the Temple to preach his message.  An altercation ensued and the Romans were on the scene almost immediately, and after arresting Jesus, they threw him into the Roman jail ("tank").  After a brief examination by a Roman proconsul, the local Jewish authorities (not Herod) were consulted (the Romans were federalists.)  The proconsul summarily found Jesus guilty of sedition against the Empire, and Pilate signed the order for Jesus' execution without the two ever meeting in person.  Jesus was executed by crucifixion the next day (Friday), and after his death, his body was removed from his cross, thrown into a nearby pit where it was consumed by ravenous dogs and birds of prey.

[The Grand Nudger]

You may be convinced of that, but it's a jumble of different (and competing, and mutually exclusive) historical jesus candidates..... and the q hypothesis paints an entirely different character altogether.

[Jehanne]

You may be convinced of that, but it's a jumble of different (and competing, and mutually exclusive) historical jesus candidates..... and the q hypothesis paints an entirely different character altogether.

No doubt the Gospel authors (and, to a lesser extent, Paul, who had his own theology), blended together different source material, and it may be the Q does not contain any words spoken from the mouth of the historical Jesus, but, nonetheless, Q existed as an historical document that has simply been lost to time.  It may, however, have been composed by some Jewish rabbi, who got his material elsewhere.

[The Grand Nudger]

The q hypothesis states that there was a -greek-..not jewish, source.  I suppose I can understand why people get this mixed up in the context of "jewish christians" in a heavily hellenized part of the world.

-and it remains the case that you are basing your "no doubts" on a hypothetical document that no one has, no one mentioned, and no one decided to keep. The foundation of which is based upon attempting to construct a non christian non jewish jesus, who was a wandering cynic offering smart sentences to anyone who struck up a conversation or offered a meal.

Does that sound like the guy you're convinced of?

[Jehanne]

The q hypothesis states that there was a -greek-..not jewish, source.  I suppose I can understand why people get this mixed up in the context of "jewish christians" in a heavily hellenized part of the world.

-and it remains the case that you are basing your "no doubts" on a hypothetical document that no one has, no one mentioned, and no one decided to keep.  The foundation of which is based upon attempting to construct a non christian non jewish jesus, who was a wandering cynic offering smart sentences to anyone who struck up a conversation or offered a meal.

Does that sound like the guy you're convinced of?

Many Jews spoke Greek; the author of the Gospel of Matthew was a Jew.

[The Grand Nudger]

............?

The hypothetical historical character of the hypothetical historical document q....was not.  Nor was he a carpenter or the son of a carpenter.  Nor was he a raving apocalyptic loon.  Nor was he a seditious anti-roman provacateur, nor did he speak at the temple, nor was he ever arrested or crucified by pilate or any other.

He was a smart, well spoken, well educated, and lucid secular philosopher of a greek tradition..who, like many others in that tradition, wandered around galilee...but probably wasn't born there.

[Jehanne]

............?

The hypothetical historical character of the hypothetical historical document q....was not.  Nor was he a carpenter or the son of a carpenter.  Nor was he a raving apocalyptic loon.  Nor was he a seditious anti-roman provacateur, nor did he speak at the temple, nor was he ever arrested or crucified by pilate or any other.

He was a smart, well spoken, well educated, and lucid secular philosopher of a greek tradition..who, like many others in that tradition, wandered around galilee...but probably wasn't born there.

My only claim was that Q was an historical document, not that it contained a single word spoken by the historical Jesus.

[The Grand Nudger]

There has to be some disconnect here.  The entire point of the q hypothesis is to present some explanation other than "they looked at each others shit" for the things common between the synoptics.  That mark, along with q (and god knows what else), is the original story of whomever all these stories are about.

The things you listed on, as the historical character you're certain existed...-are- the embellishments....