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Quote by Richard C. Carrier

“Mark was certainly written after 70 (the year the Jerusalem temple was destroyed), but how long after is an open question We really have no evidence that Mark was written any earlier than 100, in fact, so it's simply presumption really that puts his Gospel in the first century. [...] Nothing is known of the author. Late tradition claims he was Peter's secretary, but there is no reason to trust that information, and it seems most unlikely. Mark is advocating against Torah-observant Christianity (see Chapter 10, §5) and thus would have been Peter's opponent, not representative. There is no evidence really that Matthew was written in the 80s. Nothing is known of the author. We know 'Matthew' was not an eyewitness, because he copies Mark verbatim and just modifies and adds to him [...], which is not the behavior of a witness, but of a late literary redactor. [...] John wrote after Luke-as almost everyone agrees [...] It could have been written as late as the 140s (some argue even later) or as early as the 100s (provided Luke was written in the 90s). [...] John was redacted multiple times and thus had multiple authors. 32 Nothing is known of them.”

Quote by Richard C. Carrier

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On the Historicity of Jesus: Why We Might Have Reason for Doubt

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Richard C. Carrier

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“He gave me a new German translation of the Bible and opened it to the first page. There I read again and again: 'Und die Erde war Wirrnis und Wüste. Finsternis allüber Abgrund. Braus Gottes brütend allüber den Wassern.' It could have been written about me, I thought. I thought that the beginning had been like this and I kept on hearing these words sound in my heart.”

“ONE OF THE MOST interesting features of the early Christian debates over orthodoxy and heresy is the fact that views that were originally [...] deemed orthodox came to be declared heretical. Nowhere is this more clear than in the case of the first heretical view of Christ—the view that denies his divinity. [...] the very first Christians held to exaltation Christologies which maintained that the man Jesus (who was nothing more than a man) had been exalted to the status and authority of God. The earliest Christians thought that this happened at his resurrection; eventually, some Christians came to believe it happened at his baptism. Both views came to be regarded as heretical by the second century CE, [...] It is not that the second-century “heresy-hunters” among the Christian authors attacked the original Christians for these views. Instead, they attacked the people of their own day for holding them; and in their attacks they more or less “rewrote history,” by claiming that such views had never been held by the apostles at the beginning or by the majority of Christians ever.”

“The words are few, and the sentence short; no one in Scripture so short. But it fareth with Sentences as with coynes: In coines, they that in smallest compasse conteine greatest value, are best esteemed: and, in sentences, those that in fewest words comprise most matter, are most praised. Which, as of all sentences it is true; so specially of those that are marked with Memento. In them, the shorter the better; the better, and the better carried away, and the better kept; and the better called for when we need it. And such is this here; of rich contents, and with all exceeding compendious: So that, we must needs be without all excuse, it being but three words, and but five syllables, if we doe not remember it.”

“And these explanations of the sacred scriptures are delivered by mystic expressions in allegories, for the whole of the law appears to these men to resemble a living animal, and its express commandments seem to be the body, and the invisible meaning concealed under and lying beneath the plain words resembles the soul, in which the rational soul begins most excellently to contemplate what belongs to itself, as in a mirror, beholding in these very words the exceeding beauty of the sentiments, and unfolding and explaining the symbols, and bringing the secret meaning naked to the light to all who are able by the light of a slight intimation to perceive what is unseen by what is visible.”