Walter Hicks wrote:
> george murphy wrote:
>
> snip.
>
> >
> >
> > Very quickly -
> > 1) There is little basis for Celsus 'claim but there's nothing implusible
> > in Jesus quoting a Greek author: Paul did. Palestinian Judaism in Jesus' time
> > was strongly influenced by Hellenism.
> > 2) Historical research with the gospels & Genesis (& the OT in general) are
> > not really comparable. There is no serious doubt about the existence of major
> > NT figures - Jesus, John the Baptist, Pilate - in Palestine during the latter
> > reign of Tiberius. The historical evidence for Methuselah, Noah, Abraham &c is
> > considerably less compelling. In the NT case major questions have to do with
> > specific saying attributed to a known historical figure. With Genesis there are
> > questions about the existence of some of the characters. (By which I do not
> > mean to deny that they _did_ exist.)
> > 3) Having said that, it's clear that some of the material in the gospels is
> > due to the reflections of the early church & the gospel writers, & this simply
> > from the internal evidence. To take just one important example, the confession
> > of Peter at Caesarea Phillippi. Mark's account gives the impression that Jesus
> > rejected the title "Messiah" while in Matthew he praises Peter's attribution to
> > him of this title as a gift of God. It can't be both ways. There are many
> > other examples.
>
> I am curious about the reference to Abraham. If he were not a historical figure,
> would you consider writings the about him to be a continuation of Genesis 1-11 as a
> "parable" or religious story? (I am fumbling for the correct words here.) Any
> elaboration?
My purpose here wasn't to deny that Abraham might be an historical character
but simply to say that evaluating his possible place in history is a quite different
matter from such an evaluation for Jesus & other NT figures. To note just one thing -
some of Paul's letters were written down within ~20 years of the end of Jesus' ministry
& the synoptic gospels were written within the lifetimes of some people who would have
seen & heard Jesus. OTOH the stories we have about Abraham in Genesis were written
down, in the form that we have them, at least several centuries after Abraham now
lived. In other words, we have writings by Jesus' contemporaries & near-contemporaries
speaking of him as a real person who was crucified by a Roman governor whom we know
about from extra-biblical sources. We have nothing comparable with this for Abraham.
Shalom,
George
George L. Murphy
http://web.raex.com/~gmurphy/
"The Science-Theology Interface"
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