Bible Fake: Jesus Stills the Storm

by JosephAlward 54 Replies latest watchtower bible

JosephAlward

I've argued before in this forum that Mark wanted to have Jesus seem to be the messiah whose existence he believed--or pretended to believe--was prophesied, foreshadowed, or prefigured, by persons and events found in Scripture, so he scoured the writings of the prophets for these stories, and adapted them to fit Jesus. I believe the striking parallels below show almost conclusively that Mark's story about Jesus stilling the storm was adapted from Jonah, and is fictional.
In Jonah, a violent storm threatens a ship on which Jonah sleeps, so Mark made a violent storm threaten a ship on which Jesus sleeps. In Jonah, the apprehensive sailors waken Jonah and question his cavalier attitude toward the danger, so Mark made his boat's captain apprehensive also, and had him, too, waken Jesus and question him about his seeming lack of concern. The miraculous calming of the sea in Jonah causes the men to fear the Lord, so Mark has the miraculous calming of his sea make the disciples fear Jesus, too. (Jonah 1:4-16, Mark 4:37-41)
Here are the relevant verses:
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[S]uch a violent storm arose that the ship threatened to break up. (Jonah 1:4)
A furious squall came up, and the waves broke over the boat, so that it was nearly swamped. (Mark 4:37)
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Jonah...fell into a deep sleep. The captain went to him and said, "How can you sleep? (Jonah 1:5-6)
Jesus was…sleeping... The disciples woke him and said to him, "Teacher, don't you care if we drown?" (Mark 4:38)
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[T]he raging sea grew calm. At this the men greatly feared the LORD (Jonah 1:15-16)
Then the wind died down and it was completely calm.They were terrified and asked each other, "Who is this?” (Mark 4:39-41)
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Joseph F. Alward
"Skeptical Views of Christianity and the Bible"
* http://members.aol.com/jalw/joseph_alward.html
cellomould

Good comments Joseph.
It is a bit discouraging to think that the gospel writers may have dishonestly embellished their stories. I had preferred to view it as that they were simply a bit too enthused.
But then, whose intentions can you really trust?
cellomould
"In other words, your God is the warden of a prison where the only prisoner is your God." Jose Saramago, The Gospel According to Jesus Christ
LittleToe

Tenuous reasoning at best. More like 1 + 1 = 23.
Why would people who knew the OT, and the story of Jonah, try to embellish it?
I am unaware of any tradition that places the Jonah account as a prediction on what would happen to the Messiah.
Labelling a theory as "almost conclusively", is most certainly not a rational argument.
By all means disbelieve, but why bring in spurious material?
You are discrediting a story that you have made up, as if this somehow undermines what others believe.
I don't think you'll find many that believed what you are suggesting, in the first place.
cellomould:
Getting discouraged, already? The thread has barely begun.
As for trusting intentions, it's nigh on impossible to even trust your own, let alone anyone elses!
RWC

Good Morning Joseph,
This one is quite a stretch. You leave out some very important details of the story of Jonah that render your attempt futile. Jonah is the story of a man who willingly disobeyed God and tried to run from him. The storm came while he was running away from Ninevah where God had told jonah to preach. The men on the boat knew he was running from God so when the storm came up because he had told them. They asked him "What have you done?" At that point the sea was getting rougher so they asked him "What shall we do to make the sea calm down?" He told them to throw him overboard because he knew it ws his fault that the storm came up. They initially did not do that and tried to row to shore. But when they couldn't, they threw him overboard and the sea calmed.
The message from the story of Jonah is far different from the message of Jesus calming the seas. The people to whom Mark was writing would know the story of Jonah and know what it taught. It is unlikely that hey would not make the connection you are attempting to make so including it would win Mark any converts.
Also, anytime the Gospel writers attempts to point that Jesus fulfilled an old Testament prophesy, they quoted the text. Why wouldn't they mention Jonah if they made the connection?
tyydyy

Maybe Mark didn't have the brains to come up with an original story. Kinda like the similarities between the story of Lot offering his daughters to a mob of angry gays and the story of the guy who gave his concubine to a mob of angry gays.
Don't you see how the bible writers used traditional stories, already accepted, to get people to accept some even more outlandish stories?
TimB
Farkel

One fantasy begets another. Tell me, how could Jonah live in the belly of a fish for three days? Whether it was a Grouper or whatever, explain how any fish would have enough oxygen in its stomach to allow a man to breath for 72 hours? Wouldn't those there digestive juices (you know: the kind that are strong enough to break down MEAT and bones) have done a number on old Jonah during that 72 hour period?
It's all bullshit.
Farkel
Adonai438

Huh, a society that lived on the coasts of seas and traveled by boat and fished for their lively hood turning out to have more than one account of a ship in a storm. It must have been plagerized!
Sorry but the reasoning isn't reasonable. And there is reference to the messiah being typical of Jonah-- not jonah himself --
When the Pharisees were demanding a sign or miracle from Jesus he said all the sign they would recieve was the sign of Jonah. Jesus said that as Jonah was in the belly of the fish for three days so shall he be three days in the belly of the earth(Matt.12:38-41).
JosephAlward

RWC responds:
It is unlikely that hey would not make the connection you are attempting to make…Also, anytime the Gospel writers attempts to point that Jesus fulfilled an old Testament prophesy, they quoted the text. Why wouldn't they mention Jonah if they made the connection?
It would have been appropriate for Mark to remind his slower readers that he wanted them to think of the Jonah story, but his reason for not doing so seems obvious: The connection to Jonah would have been too obvious to most readers to bother to mention. Mark's intelligent readers could not have failed to compare Mark's story to the one in Jonah. There are obvious differences between the two stories, but the similarities are too strong for the readers to overlook. Where else in all of literature or folklore does one find all of the following elements:
1. A raging storm threatens a boat.
2. The hero is asleep on the boat.
3. The hero is awakened and criticized for his apparent lack of concern.
4. The storm is miraculously calmed.
5. The passengers fear the miracle-worker.
How is it possible, RWC, for knowledgeable readers to have failed to see the connection to the Jonah story?
Why was there no mention of prophecy-fulfillment? Well, the stilling of the seas wasn't a prophecy-fulfillment story, so there was no prophecy for Mark to have Jesus quote. Mark's intention here was not to show that prophecy was fulfilled, but instead to show that Jesus had the same power as the Lord. Mark knew his readers would compare Jesus to the Lord and see that just like the Lord, Jesus could calm the seas, too.
Mark did the same thing with the miraculous feeding stories. There was no "prophecy" to quote here, just a story about Elisha's men complaining that they couldn't feed so many men on so little food; Elisha told them to feed the one hundred men anyway, and it was miraculously accomplished, with food left over. (2 Kings 4:42-44). Mark had Jesus' men complain, too, but Jesus told them to feed the five thousand anyway, and it was miraculously accomplished, with food left over(6:32-42). Thus, Mark's readers were expected to recall the Elisha story and recognize that whatever power the Lord had given Elisha, it was given to Jesus many times over.
A fuller exposition of the miraculous feeding stories and their parallels to the Elisha feeding is found at http://sol.sci.uop.edu/~jfalward/Loaves_and_Fishes.htm
Joseph F. Alward
"Skeptical Views of Christianity and the Bible"
* http://members.aol.com/jalw/joseph_alward.html
RWC

Joseph,
You have done quite abit of speculation on what Mark was thinking when he wrote the Gospels in an effort to claim that he fictionalized it. Do you have any scholarly evidence to support these speculations on his thought process? Did Luke think the same thing when he wrote his gospel, or was he telling the truth that he was writing the Gospel so that Theophilus may know the certainty of what he had been taught? Luke includes the calming of the sea as well as Mark.
The fact that both stories involve the sea and a storm do not mean that Mark's is made up. That is an illogical leap. Why isn't it a copy of the Moses story when the sea is parted and all are saved. Both stories involve a sea, a great wind, the need to be saved, God intervening through Moses to part the sea, and everyone being in fear of the Lord and rejoicing afterwards.
The bottom line, just like in the feeding stories that you mention, is what evidence do you have that they did not happen as was written? The authors are saying they are writing what they witnessed or what they were taught from eyewitnesses. You claim that they are lying and making connections to older stories in an effort to prop up Jesus, yet you have no evidence that they are lying. Maybe, if there is a connection to be made, Jesus, as the son of God, did engage in some of the same behavior as God such as controlling nature and bringing people back to life because he had the ability to do so. That would make similar feats attributed to God in the Old Testament sound familar, but it is no evidence that Jesus did not engage in that activity or that the Gospel writers copied the old stories for that purpose.
The question to you is: What support do you have that these apparant similar events were recorded by Mark and Luke not because they happened, but becuase they were lying about it?
JosephAlward

The fact that both stories involve the sea and a storm do not mean that Mark's is made up. That is an illogical leap.
What's illogical is addressing only of two elements of the parallel, and the weakest ones at that--the sea, and the storm. I thought I had made it clear that there were five elements in the two stories that are not to be found anywhere else in literature or folklore. I'll repeat these elements below:
1. A raging storm threatens a boat.
2. The hero is asleep on the boat.
3. The hero is awakened and criticized for his apparent lack of concern.
4. The storm is miraculously calmed.
5. The passengers fear the miracle-worker.
You don't believe that it's just a coincidence that all five of these elements appear in both the Jonah and Jesus tales, do you?
Joseph F. Alward
"Skeptical Views of Christianity and the Bible"
* http://members.aol.com/jalw/joseph_alward.html

Bible Fake: Jesus Stills the Storm

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