“In almost any war one side can be dishonestly demonized even by a truthful enumeration of its crimes, if the crimes of its adversaries are suppressed.”
—Irmin Vinson on the Third Reich
Cross altar
Painting of the day:
Master of the Polling Panels
Polling Cross altar (detail) ~ 1444
Alte Pinakothek of Munich
The fallibility of the Gospels (2)
A chapter from Ian Wilson’s
Jesus: The Evidence
This method is useful for showing up which episodes are common to all gospels, which are peculiar to a single gospel, the variations of interest or emphasis between one writer and another, and so on. It is immediately obvious that while Matthew, Mark and Luke have a great deal in common, describing the same ‘miracles’, the same sayings, essentially sharing a common narrative framework, the John gospel is a maverick, describing different incidents and devoting much space to lengthy, apparently verbatim speeches that seem quite unlike Jesus’ pithy utterances reported elsewhere. In about 1774 the pioneering German scholar Johann Griesbach coined the word ‘synoptic’ for the Matthew, Mark and Luke gospels, from the Greek for ‘seen together’, while that of John has become generally known as the Fourth Gospel. It has always been regarded as having been written later than the other three.
As different theologians pursued the underlying clues to the gospel writers’ psychology revealed by the parallel passage technique, so increasing scepticism developed, particularly in Germany during the early nineteenth century. There, a century earlier, a faltering start on a critical approach had been made by Hamburg University oriental languages professor Hermann Samuel Reimarus. In secret Reimarus wrote a book, On the Aims of Jesus and his Disciples, arguing that Jesus was merely a failed Jewish revolutionary, and that after his death his disciples cunningly stole his body from the tomb in order to concoct the whole story of his resurrection. So concerned was Reimarus to avoid recriminations for holding such views that he would only allow the book to be published after his death. His caution was justified.
Following in the critical tradition, in the years 1835-6 Tübingen University tutor David Friedrich Strauss (pic) launched his two-volume The Life of Jesus Critically Examined, making particularly penetrating use of the parallel passage technique. Because of the discrepancies he found, he cogently argued that none of the gospels could have been by eyewitnesses, but instead must have been the work of writers of a much later generation, freely constructing their material from probably garbled traditions about Jesus in circulation in the early Church. Inspired by the [idealistic] rationalism of the philosophers Kant and Hegel — ‘the real is the rational and the rational is the real’ — Strauss uncompromisingly dismissed the gospel miracle stories as mere myths invented to give Jesus greater importance. For such findings Strauss was himself summarily dismissed from his tutorship at Tübingen, and later failed, for the same reason, to gain an important professorship at Zürich.
(To be continued…)
Hunter Wallace on the Jewish Problem
A comment by Wallace on September 21, 2011:
As someone who considers Jewish influence an important problem, but not the only problem, and as someone who believes the matter should be dealt with in a reasonable and responsible way, the problem is that the clown movement (which has always overlapped with WN) is constantly sabotaging every attempt to discuss the issue in public with their theatrics.
Why do people steer clear of the Jewish Question? I’m talking about people who know that issue inside and out like virtually everyone involved with TOQ. I know all about the Jews. There are tons of people in the conservative movement who know all about the Jews.
It is because of the clown movement. Just look at the discussions we are having here at Majority Rights: Jews Did 9/11, Jews Did The Civil War, Jews Did Norway, etc. Look no further than the comment section at The Occidental Observer.
Now, even if you believe that Jews had foreknowledge of 9/11 (future historians will one day resolve that question), what about all this other nonsense that J Richards is stirring up here? It almost seems calculated to make discussion of the Jewish Question look kooky or insane.
Do you remember my blog Antisemitica?
Just to make a point, I could find something bad that Jews were up to on an everyday basis just by reading their own websites. What that segment of the Jewish community does on an everyday basis is damaging enough to them. It would be sufficient for Gentiles to draw attention to what they are doing on a daily basis and to start criticizing them for it in a reasonable manner.
Instead, we have the clown movement coming up with all these absurd conspiracy theories, and accusing people of being “controlled opposition” and “Jewish agents” and “secret Jews” and “Cass Sunstein operatives.”
Probably out of sheer annoyance more than anything else I stopped talking about the issue. I used to talk about it all the time (see my debates with Guy White), but I rarely discuss it anymore. Just because there is a perception out there that it is kooky to obsess over the issue.
My attitude toward the Jewish Question is probably representative of people who know all about the issue, but who have quit discussing it, or who avoid discussing the issue altogether. It is fundamentally an attitude which has been shaped by interaction with the clown movement which is a bigger obstacle to discussion of the Jewish Question than the Mainstream Media.
Don’t believe me?
Every other issue has gained mainstream traction… the racial double standard, criticism of multiculturalism, black-on-white crime, opposition to immigration, HBD discussion of differences in intelligence, attacks on free trade, attacks on globalization, assertion of a pro-White identity, etc.
“White Nationalism Lite” is penetrating the mainstream. It is becoming the common sense of the American Right. I’ve been watching the evolution of sites like Free Republic for 10 years now and can verify this. Jared Taylorism and Sam Francisism is triumphing now.
The Jewish Question though… that remains stuck in the mud. It is stuck in the mud primarily because of the presence of the clown movement who alienate and annoy people who agree it is a serious issue.
Kevin MacDonald is one of the few people who is capable of discussing the Jewish Question purely as an academic in a measured and responsible way. For every Kevin MacDonald, there are thousands of Der Linders and J Richards out there, whose rhetorical radicalism undermines and sabotages MacDonald on an everyday basis.
How many times have I heard it now: “You know, Kevin MacDonald has a point, but his followers are nuts, so lets not go there.”
The Jewish Question will go nowhere (unlike immigration, unlike black-on-white crime, unlike reassertion of White identity) until that perception begins to change.
