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Atheist anti-theist Jonathan M. S. Pearce is the main writer on the blog,\u00a0A Tippling Philosopher<\/em><\/a>.\u00a0His\u00a0\u201cAbout\u201d page<\/a>\u00a0states: \u201cPearce is a philosopher, author, blogger, public speaker and teacher from Hampshire in the UK. He specialises in philosophy of religion, but likes to turn\u00a0his hand to science, psychology, politics and anything involved in investigating reality.\u201d His words will be in\u00a0blue<\/span>.<\/span><\/p>\n *****<\/p>\n Presently, I am responding to his article, <\/span>Mimesis, the Gospels, and Their Greek Sources<\/a> (10-14-21).<\/p>\n I\u00a0forgot<\/em>\u00a0\u2013 literally forgot \u2013 to put in my Joseph of Arimathea section in my\u00a0Resurrection book<\/a>\u00a0the very robust theory that Joseph of Arimathea was modelled mimetically on Priam from Homer\u2019s\u00a0Iliad<\/em>.<\/span><\/p>\n I really do need to release a second edition already because there is\u00a0so\u00a0<\/em>so much about the Gospels is a case are emulating \u2013 openly and intentionally \u2013 these Greek sources. . . .\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n I have been privy to [Dennis R.]<\/span> MacDonald\u2019s Magnum Opus on this, hopefully forthcoming from someone, somewhere. It\u2019s masterful and leaves you with no doubt. After all, when every Greek writer would have learned Greek through reading and writing the Greek epics and classics, such as Homer\u2019s works, then there is no surprise that such works end up being used and reformulated into the Gospels.<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cLex Lata\u201d<\/a> in the combox:<\/p>\n My inexpert sense is that some of MacDonald\u2019s connections might be on the unduly tenuous and speculative side, but his overall argument is pretty solid. There\u2019s no question the NT authors were, if not actually \u0388\u03bb\u03bb\u03b7\u03bd\u03b5\u03c2 themselves, Hellenized Jews and Christians who were literate in Koine Greek. And, as noted in this video, becoming literate in Greek in antiquity routinely involved memorizing, reciting, transcribing, and translating elements of particularly renowned works, such as the Iliad and other literary and philosophical classics. So, unsurprisingly, there is not only a substantial likelihood of direct or indirect narrative mimesis in certain NT passages, but also a number of known borrowings from pagan writers like Menander and Epimenides.<\/p>\n Early Christianity wasn\u2019t merely Judaism 2.0\u2013it was a fusion of Hebrew and Greco-Roman traditions, cultures, rhetoric, and metaphysics.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n St. Paul mentioned Menander and Epimenides in the course of his evangelism, in order to connect with his particular audience of Greek intellectuals (in his interaction with Epicurean and Stoic philosophers on Mars Hill in Athens: Acts 17). But this is worlds away from supposedly grabbing elements in Greek literature as a basis of fabricated stories within an overall alleged fictional Gospel.<\/p>\n The scholar that Pearce is appealing to in this post is Dennis R MacDonald (born 1946). According to his Wikipedia page, he is \u201cthe John Wesley Professor of New Testament and Christian Origins at the Claremont School of Theology in\u00a0California. MacDonald proposes a theory wherein the earliest books of the\u00a0New Testament\u00a0were responses to the Homeric Epics, including the\u00a0Gospel of Mark\u00a0and the\u00a0Acts of the Apostles. The methodology he pioneered is called\u00a0Mimesis Criticism<\/a>.\u201d<\/p>\n The article describes his central thesis:<\/p>\n In\u00a0Christianizing Homer<\/i>, MacDonald lays down his principles of literary\u00a0mimesis<\/a>, his methodology for comparing ancient texts. There are six aspects he examines 1) accessibility, 2) analogy, 3) density, 4) order, 5) distinctive traits, and 6) interpretability.[1]<\/a><\/sup>\u00a0According to his hypothesis, not only was Homer readily available to the authors of the New Testament, but the Homeric epics would have been the basic texts upon which the New Testament authors learned to write Greek. MacDonald also argues that the number of common traits, the order in which they occur, and the distinctiveness thereof between the Homeric Texts and early Christian documents help to show that the New Testament writers were using Homeric models when writing various books.<\/p>\n In his earliest reviews, MacDonald only applied his hypothesis to works such as\u00a0Tobit<\/i>\u00a0and the\u00a0Acts of Peter<\/i>. In later works, he posits the Acts of the Apostles, the Gospel of Mark, and Gospel of Luke merged two cultural classics of his time period in order to \u201cdepict Jesus as more compassionate, powerful, noble, and inured to suffering than Odysseus.\u201d<\/p>\n MacDonald\u2019s most famous work, however, is\u00a0The Homeric Epics and the Gospel of Mark<\/i>. According to MacDonald, the Gospel of Mark is \u201ca deliberate and conscious anti-epic, an inversion of the Greek \u2018Bible\u2019 of Homer\u2019s Iliad and Odyssey, which in a sense updates and Judaizes the outdated heroic values presented by Homer, in the figure of a new hero.\u201d[4]<\/a><\/sup><\/p>\n The book begins by examining the role that the Homeric Epics played in antiquity\u2014namely that anybody who was considered educated at the time learned to read and write, and they did so by studying the Odyssey and Iliad. Students were expected, not only to understand the epics, but be able to rewrite the stories in their own words. Rewriting the Homeric Epics was commonplace and accepted in Biblical times.[4]<\/a>\u00a0<\/sup><\/p>\n . . . \u201cMark\u2019s purpose\u201d, he argues, \u201cin creating so many stories about Jesus was to demonstrate how superior [Jesus] was to Greek heroes. Few readers of Mark fail to see how he portrays Jesus as superior to Jewish worthies\u2026 He does the same for Greek heroes.\u201d[1]<\/a><\/sup><\/p><\/blockquote>\n The same article presents withering criticism of MacDonald\u2019s work from other scholars:<\/p>\n MacDonald\u2019s thesis has not found acceptance and has received strong criticism by other scholars.[5]<\/a><\/sup>[6]<\/a><\/sup>[7]<\/a><\/sup>[8]<\/a><\/sup>[9]<\/a><\/sup>\u00a0Karl Olav Sandnes notes the vague nature of alleged parallels as the \u201cAchilles\u2019 heel\u201d of the \u201cslippery\u201d project. He has also questioned the nature of the alleged paralleled motifs, seeing MacDonald\u2019s interpretations of common motives. He states, \u201cHis [MacDonald\u2019s] reading is fascinating and contributes to a reader-orientated exegesis. But he fails to demonstrate authorial intention while he, in fact, neglects the OT intertextuality that is broadcast in this literature.\u201d<\/p>\n Daniel Gullotta from Stanford similarly writes \u201cMacDonald\u2019s list of unconvincing comparisons goes on and has been noted by numerous critics. Despite MacDonald\u2019s worthy call for scholars to reexamine the educational practices of the ancient world, all of the evidence renders his position of Homeric influential dominance untenable.\u201d[10]<\/a><\/sup><\/p>\n Adam Winn, though adopting MacDonald\u2019s methods of mimetic criticism, concluded after a detailed analysis of MacDonald\u2019s theses and comparisons between Homer and Mark that \u201cMacDonald is unable to provide a single example of clear and obvious Markan interpretation of Homer\u2026 because MacDonald\u2019s evidence is at best suggestive, it will ultimately convince few.\u201d[11]<\/a><\/sup><\/p>\n David Litwa argues that problematic parts of MacDonald\u2019s thesis include that he construes both large ranges of similarity in addition to large range of difference as evidence for parallel, that he alters his parallels in order to make them more convincing like suggesting that Jesus walking on water is comparable to Athena and Hermes flying above water, that he has an inconsistent application of his own six criteria (where he often uses only one or two to establish parallel and thus relies largely on loose structural standards of similarity), and that he often has completely unconvincing parallels such as his comparison of Odysseus on a floating island to Jesus sitting in a boat that floats on water.[12]<\/a><\/sup><\/p><\/blockquote>\n What has Pearce so excited that he can hardly contain himself, is MacDonald\u2019s comparison of Joseph of Arimathea with the character Priam, in Homer\u2019s Iliad<\/em>. Encyclopaedia Britannica<\/em> (\u201cPriam\u201d<\/a>) describes the material that is the basis for such a comparison:<\/p>\n In the final year of the conflict, Priam saw 13 sons die: the Greek warrior\u00a0<\/span>Achilles\u00a0killed Polydorus,\u00a0Lycaon, and Hector within one day. The death of Hector, which signified the end of Troy\u2019s hopes, also broke the spirit of the king. Priam\u2019s paternal love impelled him to brave the savage anger of Achilles and to ransom the corpse of Hector; Achilles, respecting the old man\u2019s feelings and foreseeing his own father\u2019s sorrows, returned the corpse.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n This is compared to the Gospel accounts:<\/p>\n Matthew 27:57-58<\/strong> (RSV) When it was evening, there came a rich man from Arimathe\u2019a, named Joseph, who also was a disciple of Jesus. [58] He went to Pilate and asked for the body of Jesus. Then Pilate ordered it to be given to him. (cf. Mk 15:43-45; Lk 23:50-52; Jn 19:38)<\/p><\/blockquote>\n Now note how MacDonald accuses the Gospel writers of pure fabrication:<\/p>\n Although it is possible that a woman of this name [Mary Magdalene] once existed, it is more likely that Mark created her to populate his narrative.<\/p>\n . . . It will not be Joseph of Nazareth who buries him but Joseph of Arimathea. Mark\u2019s penchant for creating characters to contrast with Jesus\u2019 family and closest disciples applies also to the names of the women at the tomb. (The Gospels and Homer<\/em><\/a>, 2014, p. 95)<\/p><\/blockquote>\n I\u2019d like to know how one proves that a named person didn\u2019t exist, but was merely made up? On what basis<\/em> is that done? How does MacDonald know that \u201cit is more likely\u201d that Mark made up or \u201ccreated\u201d Mary Magdalene? The Christian would say that if the Gospel writers\u2019 historical accuracy has been established times without number from archaeology and historical verification (as they assuredly have been), then they can be trusted in cases where they mention a person or event for the first time. MacDonald\u2019s skepticism is arbitrary and unfounded.<\/p>\n He asserts this numerous times in this book:<\/p>\n Mark . . . adds fifteen other place names, five of which are not independently attested: Dalmanoutha, Bethphage, Arimathea, Gethsemane, and Golgotha. As we shall see, he likely created them. (Ibid<\/em>., p. 2)<\/p><\/blockquote>\n In fact, Bethphage \u201coccurs in several Talmudic passages where it may be inferred that it was near but outside Jerusalem; it was at the Sabbatical distance limit East of Jerusalem, and was surrounded by some kind of wall. (International Standard Bible Encyclopedia<\/em>, \u201cBethphage\u201d<\/a>). The Talmud was based \u201con Jewish religious teachings and commentary that was transmitted orally for centuries\u201d (Encyclopaedia Britannica<\/em>: \u201cJerusalem Talmud\u201d<\/a>), Thus, MacDonald is wrong about its non-biblical attestation.<\/p>\n [T]he Markan Evangelist apparently did not inherit most of his characters and episodes from antecedent traditions and texts; he created them by imitating classical Greek poetry, especially the Homeric epics, the Odyssey<\/em> above all. (Ibid<\/em>., p. 2)<\/p>\n She assumes that Mark inherited this tale from oral tradition, but more than likely he created it in imitation of Il.<\/em> [Iliad<\/em>] 24. (p. 101)<\/p>\n Virtually all solutions have presumed that the anointing story [Mt 26:6-13] was pre-Markan, but it is more likely that Mark himself created it with an eye to Eurycleia\u2019s anointing of Odysseus . . . (p. 156)<\/p>\n If Mark created Jesus\u2019 prayer from antecedents in Od<\/em>. [Odyssey<\/em>] 10.496-501 . . . (p. 223)<\/p>\n Luke . . . apparently created a story . . . (p. 239)<\/p>\n Mark . . . more than likely created his account from literary models. (p. 241)<\/p>\n If Mark created the choice between Jesus and Barabbas by imitating the suitor\u2019s choice between Odysseus and the violent beggar Irus . . . (p. 297)<\/p>\n If Mark were responsible for creating the episode of Judas\u2019s betrayal after the treachery of Homer\u2019s Melanthius . . . (p. 318)<\/p><\/blockquote>\n Protestant theologian Ronald V. Huggins<\/a> offers an exhaustive critique of MacDonald\u2019s questioning of the existence of Judas Iscariot and the stories about him: \u201cDid Judas Exist? A Friendly Critique of Dennis R. MacDonald\u2019s Easter Time Blog\u201d<\/a> (4-22-16). Other critical pieces:<\/p>\n Homer in the New Testament?<\/a> (Margaret M. Mitchell, The Journal of Religion<\/em>,\u00a0Volume 83, Number 2 <\/span>Apr., 2003).<\/span><\/p>\n