Wait Wait Wait.

Christos,

Isn't that begging the question of "Why then cannot the entire story be fiction?" 

 

Hi Medievalguy.

Some of the problems surrounding the veracity of the slaughter of the innocents:

1 - Nowhere else in the New Testament is it mentioned.
2 - Nowhere else in the secular sources is it mentioned. One would expect such an atrocious act to have gotten at least a mention somewhere, a blurb, especially since we have record of Herod doing bad things that are way less horrendous than this mass infanticide.
3- It fits the well-attested Mosaic parallel of the gospel. (this really is the clincher for me)

Also . . .
Herod died in 4 B.C.E. which tells us that, if this story was historically feasible, then Jesus must have been born no later than that . . . but how many years before 4 B.C.E . . . . a year? . . . three? . . . . seventeen? . . . who knows?

The main problem with the Census . . .

According to Josephus, Quirinus issued a census somewhere between the years 6 and 9 C.E. A date that most people reject as being too late to coincide with the Matthew's story. If Luke is right, then Jesus was born a decade after Herod the Great had died. If Matthew is right, then Jesus was born a decade before any such census could have happened. . . . . see the problem?


Of course, this is all inconsequential as it is pretty obvious that Christos is right in saying that it's all just metaphor anyway, but I hope it helps to know why the stories don't match.

My suggestion to you, though, is to NOT go arguing about these things in some Christian forum until you have read a book or two detailing these and many other discrepancies in the gospel texts. A good place to start might be something like Asimov's Guide to the Bible (Vol II) which mentions all these things without any hint of proselytizing, i.e. from a POV of simple skeptical inquiry. You can then advance to some more in-depth materials. Do a google search . . . you'll find links to books and articles and sites.

good luck

Ó

Quixie. You make some good points. Matthew was probably written by Jews kicked out of the temple (probably in Antioch).

I actually do think that a Jew wrote Matthew. The textual evidence that the author had deep knowledge of Judasim testifies to that claim.

Quixie, there is not something un-Jewish about the authors of the Gospels (excluding Luke). Matthew especially knows Judaism backwards and forwards. I think a careful analysis of the text supports that claim. You can even see that he is Jewish in his hesitation to overthrow the law (I think its Matthew 4 or 5, right before the Sermon on the Mount). Matthew, Mark and John were beyond a doubt Jews who really believed in the resurrection and Jesus Christ.

I think their writing style to portray Jesus as a greater Moses shows their strong opinions and keeps me intrigued with Christianity. However, at the very least, this evidence supports the existence of Jesus. Considering that Moses was considered to be a real person to a first century Jew, Jesus had to be a real person to recieve such high praise form the Jews.

Quixie, honestly they were written by Jews. I'm sorry that you have a problem, but you are rejecting something that virtually every biblical scholar accepts. Similar to your rejection of Paul's conversion, which is almost completely accepted as 1-5 years after the crucifixion.

Don't get you panties all up in a bunch about widely accepted conclusions.

By the way, I go to a secular university. So I'm not getting learning from Jerry Falwell. I'm learning from people with phd's in Hisotry and Relgion rather than accepting biblical analysis from a person with an engineering degree.  

I came upon this site relating to the question which opened the thread. It's a good one.

http://blue.butler.edu/~jfmcgrat/jesus/quirinius.htm

 

    You made a really good point here.  If the scale of the massacre was only about 20 children, it could have gone unnoticed.  However, I did some research after I read this.  At the beginning of the first century, Bethlehem wasn't a small community.  I checked with the "Antiquities of the Jews" (one of the main works of Josephus Flavius, and the one often used to support the existence of Jesus), and Josephus mentions Bethlehem quite often, and often refers to it as a city, never as a town or anything smaller.  Also, from the amount of references he makes to the city, it is clear that at the time, it was very politically important.  So just based on the importance of the city, something like a massacre of the innocents would have been noticed and recorded by someone.  Also, your numbers don't work out.  A city of that time would have had a population around 2,000 to 10,000 people (comparable to a small modern town), and that's on the small side.  On average, male children under the age of 2 would have made up about 6% of the population*.  This would give a range of around 120-600 male children under the age of two.  Even on the low end of that, a massacre of more then a hundred infants (especially males) would definitely have been noticed by many.

* - This number is based on modern nations that have low life expectancies, and high infant mortality rates.  However, even in countries like this, modern life expectancy is still higher, and infant mortality still lower, so it is very conceivable that the number would actually be higher, around 8-9%.  But, for the sake of argument, I've used the lower number.

    Huh?  On the contrary, we actually know quite a bit about Roman administrative procedures.  In fact, they are some of the best well known simply for the fact that they liked to document virtually everything they did.

    While yes, a census taking place throughout the empire would drag on for years, this census was only for the Iudaea Province, and would have progressed rather quickly.  As for Luke calling this the first census, he is simply referring to the fact that this was the first census to occur in Judea.  If he is saying it because he knew of others after it, it simply points to a later date for the gospel.  However, he may of simply have called it the first, because no one had ever done such a census before, just as someone today would describe something as "the first time this think has happened" right after the event (in other words, there isn't anything to criticize).

    Yes, Justin Martyr in about 150-160CE did say something like this in his first apology:

    "...Now there is a village in the land of the Jews, thirty-five stadia from Jerusalem, in which Jesus Christ was born, as you can ascertain also from the registers of the taxing made under Cyrenius [or Quirinius], your first procurator in Judaea" Chapter 34.

    As for nobody challenging Justin Martyr or Luke on this account, firstly, by the time Luke was written (let alone Justin Martyrs First Apology), it is doubtful that the Romans would have kept those records for so long (I'm actually surprised that Justin Martyr even bothered stating that).  Also, and more simply, even if they had, they would only have had reference to Joseph (as Mary would not have been counted, being his wife, and same with Jesus who would have been a newborn).  Naturally, there were tons of people named Joseph at that time (it was a very popular name), so there wouldn't have been a point to argue.  Also, it is possible that people did challenge Luke on this, but we simply don't have anything surviving, after all, we don't have any replies (if any were written) from any of the people that he was addressing in his First Apology (I should say that as I know of, if you know of any replies, I'd love to see them).  Remember, much of what we know from that time we have because scribes copied and kept only the sources that they wanted to keep, which was sadly very one sided (this is why we have so few Gnostic and heretical works from this time).

I Quixie,

Thanks for responding.  This has the beginnings of a great exchange.

As you noted above, I am indeed Catholic.  Thanks too for noting a difference between Scriptural literalists, and those who interpet Scripture literally.

I'm a bit pressed for tim this morning, so I can only respond to a part of your post here, and thought it's be best to start by answering this question:

I am indeed not a Bible literalist.  And I pretty much draw the line at the Old Testament (with a couple of exceptions).

Further, I acknowledge the infallibilty of the Bible in matters of faith and morals.  I believe that the Old Testament is the revealed word of God, but the OT understanding of the message conveyed to them by God was, in the words of Dei Verbum, imperfect and provisional.

Additionally, I need to point out a further problem we'll probably have in any discussion of the Gospels, which is our difference in the order in which they written, and the dating of their writing.  You are obviously adhering to the theory of Markan priority (ie, the idea that Mark was the first Gospel, upon which Matthew and Luke were based), while I subscribe to the idea of Matthean priority (ie Matthew, Luke, Mark, John).

As far as dating, I believe that Matthew wrote in the late 30's to early 40's AD, Luke in the late 40's to early 50's, Mark in the mid 50's, and John in the mid-60's appending the final chapter to his Gospel in the Mid 90's. 

This is going to cause us some obvious problems in any discussion of the historicity of the birth narratives, but we can try.  I'll try to post some more this afternon, but I gotta run right now.  Just wanted to let you know wherer I was coming from up front.

Happy Independence Day!

Tchuss! 

Hey Totus. As Quixie pointed out, this is a huge problem. Your dating of the gospels is too early and not in the correct order.  I see that you hold to a Matthean priority. Although a case can be made for that, Mark was most likely the first written Gospel. The dating mainly comes from the discussion in the gospels of the Temple destruction in Jerusalem in 70 AD. You can see in Mark 13 that the author treats the temple destruction as if it’s occurring in his time. This has lead the vast majority of biblical scholar to date Mark's gospel from 70-75 AD. 

Furthermore, we can see that Matthew and Luke draw heavily (sometimes word for word) from Mark. Obviously this means that they were written after Mark. The gospel of Mark would have needed time to circulate in order for the authors of Matt and Luke to use it as a source. Thus the normal dating for Matt and Luke is 80-90 AD. Rook holds that Luke wasn't written until the mid 2nd century. Although this could be true, Marcon does use a modified version of Luke in the mid 2nd century, so I'm not sure if Luke was written that late. 

Finally, John was probably written 90-130 AD. We could actually have part of the original copy (P52). This copy (only the size of a credit card) is carbon dated from 125-150 AD, although the date could be earlier. However, you do make a correct point that John could have been written earlier in the 1st century and edited decades later.   

Quixie sighs . . . (why do I bother?)

Hiya Christos!

The theory of Markan priority was put forward originally in the late 1600's and was never considered a serious theory until embraced by the state sponsored German university system in Germany under Bismark.  The Iron Chancellor encouraged this view in an effort to cast an ill light on Catholicism, and discredit German Catholic political party opposition.  It was quickly seized upon by "liberal" Christianity as a means to foil the rise of Christian Fundamentalism.

 Markan priority rests on the existence of a common source document, 'Q', of which no trace has ever been found. It seems odd to me that the first written record of Jesus Christ existed only in two far-flung Christian communities.  It is also strange that such a precious document was never copied and distributed more widely, was never mentioned in the writings of the early fathers, and was allowed to be lost or destroyed.

Further, Markan priority flies in the face of the testimony of the earliest Church fathers.  In the interest of space, I won't provide full quotes here, but I can if you'd like to see them:

Papias (c60-139) quotes John the Apostl defending Mark's Gospel as an eyewitness acoount of Peter, written by his emanuensis (scribe) Mark.  Which places the date for Mark prior to Peter's death in 65 AD.

Justin Martyr (100-165) in Dialogue with Trypho quotes from Matthew and Luke, describing them as "teachers who have recorded all that concern our Savior Jesus Christ".  He also refers to the "memoirs of the Apostles and others who followed him", and so accepts that at least two of the Gospels were written by Apostles.

Irenaeus (c120-c180) Adversus Haereses writes of the Apostles preaching the Gospel orally, and the goes on "Matthew also brought out a Gospel among the Jews in their own tongue...Mark himself a disciple and recorder of Peter, has also handed on to us in writing what had been proclaimed by Peter.  And Luke, too, the follower of Paul, put down in a book the Gospel which was beig preached by him.  Later on, too, John, the disciple of the Lord...he too brpought out a Gospel while he was dwelling in Ephesus of Asia".

The Muratorian Fragment, written about 150, perhaps by Hippolytus.  Written in awful latin, it is also not always correct.  The author indicates a specific event at which Mark was present "...at which he was present and thus related.  In third place we have the Gospels of Luke...when Paul had taken him to be his follower...wrote from report, since he himself notwithstanding had not seen the Lord in the flesh..."

"The fourth of the Gospels is John's, one of the Disciples."

Clement of Alexandria (c150-215) must be quoted at length because of the importance of his testimony to this subject.  The following excerpts are quoted by Eusebius from "Adumbrationes in Epistolas Canonicas".

"So greatly then did the brightness of true religion light up the minds of Peter`s hearers that they were not satisfied to have a once-for-all hearing nor with the unwritten teaching of the divine proclamation, but with appeals of every kind begged Mark, the follower of Peter, whose gospel we have, to leave them too a memorial in writing of the teaching given them by word of mouth. Nor did they cease until they had persuaded the man, and in this way became the cause of the written gospel according to Mark. And it is said that the Apostle, when the fact became known to him through the revelation of the Spirit, was pleased with the eagerness of the men and approved [or ratified] the writing for use in the churches."

Eusebius again quoting Clement:

"And again in the same books, Clement states a tradition of the very earliest presbyters about the order of the gospels; and it had this form. He used to say that the first written of the gospels were those having the genealogies.  And that the Gospel of Mark had this formation.  While Peter was publicly preaching the Word in Rome and proclaiming the gospel by the spirit, the audience which was numerous, begged Mark as one who had followed him for a long time and remembered what had been said, to write down the things he had said."

"And he did so, handing over the Gospel to those who had asked for it. And when Peter got to know about it, he exerted no pressure either to forbid it or to promote it … But John, last of all, being conscious that the exterior facts had been set forth in the [other] Gospels, after he had been urged by his friends and divinely moved by the Spirit, composed a spiritual Gospel."

I could go on for a bit more, quoting Tertullian, Origen, the Anti-Marcionite Prologues, Eusebius, St Jerome, Ambrosiaster, and St Augustine.  But I think you get the point.

Matthean priority, and the fact that the Gospels were at the very least approved by first hand eyewitnesses of Christ's ministry is supported by the earliest witnesses, and does not require the existence of a non-existent source to make sense.

As anecdotal evidence, let me leave you with this question.  If these Gospels were written so late, why append the name of relative "nobody's" to them?  Why not name them after the heavy hitters (ie, Peter, James, Thomas)?  Indeed Gospels were written in their names, but not until much, much later.  But Matthew-Levi ( a tax collector), Mark (Peter's Secretary), Luke (the secretary of Paul, a man who never met Christ in the flesh), why?

 

 

 

Thank you for this bit of humor. It made for a wonderful start to my morning. Are you one of those sorts who is upset by everything that could possibly be construed as offensive? Do you use the word "womyn" or furrow your brow when you hear someone say "niggardly?"

In an ideal world you'd bother because you both respect that others have differing viewpoints on matters that you hold dear and seek to hold a rational debate/discussion.

But clearly this is not the case.

Nope. I even say the word "booger" from time to time, tough guy. &quot

 

Read the post again, while I did reveal a dislike for that OT name, I explicitly said that I realize it's just an old bad habit. It wasn't until he started in with his litany on fulfillment theology that I got offended.

I find fulfillment theology to be supremely offensive. Would you care to rationally discuss it?

 

I confess, that post might have been a tad dramatic in its economy.

I guess you didn't like it . . . hmm. . . oh well . . . what say we chalk it up to a bad hair day

. . . eh?

Anyway, . . .

the point stands. dogmatic professions are not rational discussion. As such, they are open to direct critique. If you offer something as scientifically or as historically valid and, instead of offering defensible evidence, you keep coughing up orthodox credal phrases, someone needs to show you the difference between history and wednesday-night bible study.

But then again . . . I could be wrong . . . . no?

btw . . . sorry i offended you

I promise, this is my last long post. (laughs)

I hope you find it enjoyable.

As a kind of explanatory preface, lemme say, totus, that i am not angry at you in the least. You are just a carrier of the meme . . . not the meme itself. How is it that you guys put it . . . . "hate the sin and not the sinner" ??

Rook's method of responding to posts sentence-by-sentence will come in handy here (smiles impishly):

No, you didn't miswrite, and I didn't misread.
You used traditional fulfillement-theology language. You accurately cited the party line, just as you intended to.
I in turn pointed out that such language is intrinsically anti-semitic and, as such, essentially malevolent in nature. I recognize that you don't have any idea that this language is an expression of bigotry, but it nevertheless is.



Yes, I know it was unintentional.
However, though your feeling sorry is a good start, I'd like to remind you of the teachings on repentance that your own church holds to for a moment. True repentance is a radical and deliberate turn that results in a moral and ethical change in action. Having realized that one has erred, one accepts responsibility, and one then corrects one's behavior. The biblical term for repentance, metanoia, means "to turn, or change". It does NOT mean "to apologize". Saying one is sorry and then continuing to engage in the sin is a worthless enterprise.

In other words, don't apologize and then defend your error.

I'll paraphrase your semantic smokescreen:

"Oh . . . I didn't say that the OT was outdated and obsolete (using actively caustic synonyms) . . .
no no no . . . I said that it is outdated and obsolete (using more passive synonyms - ones endorsed by church teaching) . . . . see the difference?"

No . . . I don't see the difference.


I already suggested one . . . and you yourself use one directly above (i.e. - "Hebrew Scriptures" will do just fine).



Ah . . . so you ARE a literalist, then . . . .but . . . I am very puzzled now . . . why did you deny being one in your previous post in the first place if you in fact do hold to a literalist position?

This is very fascinating. Do you realize that by holding to this literalism, you actually are in direct opposition to what the Catholic church actually teaches regarding biblical interpretation?

Allow me to refer you to a work which was personally comissioned by your own personal hero, John Paul II, which should suffice to prove my point (if you should bother to read it) :

http://www.bible-researcher.com/catholic-interpretation.html

In it, you'll see that a literalist interpretation of scripture such as yours is actually discouraged by the church you profess to belong to.

This was the reason why I asked if you were Catholic several posts ago. By their own tenets and self-definition, Catholics are NOT literalists.



Really, . . . why do YOU, then ?

You even quoted Dei Verbum . . . . "imperfect and provisional", you said.

Oh, and while you're at it . . . why does the church itself defend this supersession? . . . if it's in direct opposition to this verse you yourself refer to above. It certainly seem to be contary to what Jesu said in Matt, no? (in the interest of saving you the trouble of attempting to answer this last bit . . . don't . . . it is rhetorical)



Really? The earliest reference to Markan priority that I can find is from Karl Lachmann in 1835. Please provide a citation for a 17th century proponent of Markan priority. I am always looking to learn new things.



Here, you are implying that the discovery of Markan priority as a solution to the synoptic problem is based on a desire to undermine and usurp traditional church teaching, and that it is not in fact based on a careful systematic analysis of the texts. This is simply a form of ecclesiatical paranoia that is shameful in its partisan glossing over of the evidence posited by good men and scholars whose motive was the search for truth . . . . NOT malice.



Really?

In fact, the earliest postulation of a theoretical source (finally named "Q" - for "quelle"or "source" by Johannes Weiss in 1890) text for the material common to Matt and Luke that was not in Mark, didn't come until 1838.
You are putting the cart before the horse, reversing cause and effect, making feet to service the shoe industry, if you will.

The earliest claim of Markan priority that I know of is three years earlier than the earliest postulation of a source Gospel for Matt/Luke. And that just the earliest that I know of.
Once you show me a 16th century Markan priorist, the gap will be even bigger!

Besides your chronological blunder, there is also the little fact that there are today Markan priorists who don't necessarily hold to the Q theory. Therefore, your statement that Markan priority "rests on" Q is simply false, sir.



"Such a precious document" was at first just an attempt to write down the evolving oral traditions about Jesus' sayings. It wasn't "scripture" yet, and thus the text was not idolized like later gospels and letters would be, once the Christians got kicked out of the synagogue and needed scriptures of their own to worship (but that's for a later post). You are so used to what I call "churchianity" that you anachronistically imagine a list of sayings to be venerated as divine in and of itself way back in the 50's. That came some time later, dude.



OK, since you like patristic quotes so much . . .

How about Luke 1: 1?
"Since so many have attempted to compile an orderly narrative of the events that have run their course among us . . . ."

Could one of the "so many" have been what we know as Q?
Seems probable to me. More than probable, in fact, in light of the fact that Luke DOES in fact use that very source enough for us to see the very distinct influence it had on both his gospel and the one we call Matthew.

or how about Papias? . . .
"Matthew made a collection of sayings in the Hebrew tongue, but everyone translated them as he could".

Can you imagine that? . . . me using Papias against your argument . . . smiles . . I can do this because, after all, what Papias describes here is clearly not the same gospel that we now posses and call Matthew. There are various reasons for doubting that he's talking about our Matthew. Two will suffice for now:

1 - Using methods developed for historiographical exegesis (i.e.- literary criticism, textual criticism, and form criticism), we can with a high degree of certainty postulate that the gospel we call Matthew is not a translation, but was in fact composed in the original greek we inherited it in.

2 - The gospel we call Matthew today is far from "a collection of sayings". It is a carefully constructed pentaform narrative suite of quasi-Jewish liturgical allusions and allegory.

So . . . . if Papias was talking about some other text, some collection of logia in Hebrew (or Aramaic) which he attributed to Matthew, then . . . . what text WAS that?

Now, I don't know that the book he's talking about was what we now call Q, but you don't know that it wasn't. If it was, then maybe Papias is mentioning it right there. If it isn't, then I guess he isn't.

But, we don't know, do we?

smiles



This is nonesense.
Why do you insist that Mark wrote "Peter's Memoirs" while Peter was still alive? . . . when in fact, rather than implying that he took dictation, Papias instead explicitly states that Mark wrote "what he remembered" - not 'what was being dictated to him'. Go look up your Papias quote.

Seems to me that Mark was writing later.



Sure, he quotes from Matt and from Luke. That's cool.

(quizzically) So . . . what does that have to do with proving Markan priority, again?

Also, why do you single out the "gospel" as though it was somehow the only literary genre that possibly fits the description of "memoirs of the apostles"? Wouldn't something like the Didache also fit this description? Wouldn't what Papias describes in my quotation of him above also fit this description (being that it's not the GºMatt we know)?

Just a thought.




First of all . . . . Has it ever occured to you that the reason that the wording of Ireneus is so similar to that of Papias might be due to the fact that he might be getting this information from him and inserting it into his own polemic?

and secondly (and more importantly) . . .
What does this have to do with proving Markan priority?




again . . . Relevance to proff of Markan priority, please!



How nice.
Relevance to Markan priority?



This is funny, because you actually show evidence here that mark came first, according to Clement.

". . . . they were not satisfied to have a once-for-all hearing nor with the unwritten teaching of the divine proclamation, but with appeals of every kind begged Mark, the follower of Peter . . . . " (from the above)

In other words, there were no other written gospels before Mark's, according to this quote. It also strongly suggests that Mark was "begged" to write a "memorial" of the master. This language suggests that their master Peter was dead (recently? - who knows).

So, instead of serving your own argument, you actually inadventently provide more evidence to defeat your claim that he had to have written it before 65 . . . above.



As is shown by all manner of historical/critical methods, Clement was wrong. You can't blame the guy too much . . . I mean . . . what did HE know of three-columned synopses or of historiography?

Isn't it a bit peculiar that , in his chronological listing, he lumps Matthew and Luke together ?(" . . . the first written of the gospels were those having the genealogies . . .&quot
It's peculiar to me that he doesn't tell us which was the first in what purports to be a chronological list.
Very peculiar. It suggests to me that maybe Clement has no idea which book came first and was maybe listing them in a way that was not favoring either Matthew or Luke. We all know Matthew's gospel would eventually gain favor as a model for the liturgical and hiearchical structure of future communities of Christians (i.e. - the Roman variety of the cult, by virtue of being the most organized, was the only one that could hope to last, and it has always echoed Matthew most ) but back in Clement's day, Rome didn't have such a slam-dunk monopoly on Christendom as you think. That was the time of Marcion. Many commentarors believe that the gospel that Marcion used was a slightly modified edition of Luke's gospel. Makes one wonder if the vagueness with which Clement chronologically lists the gospels is related to this Marcionite influence. Thanks for helping in pointing this out to me . . . I'll do some further reading on it.


If these patristic quotes are going to be generally as useless in disproving Markan priority . . . please don't.
You are presenting arguments for apostolic provenance for some of the gospels as though these arguments somehow disprove Markan priority. AND!!! . . . If that wasn't bad enough . . . In the only place where something you quote is actually relevant to Markan priority, you wind up hurting your own argument.



Dude! . . . when you are defending or refuting Markan priority . . . stay on Markan priority, please . . . . . stop digressing, throwing dust up in the air to evade the point.






I'm here to tell you, dude . . . . There is strong evidence to the contrary.

I wonder if anyone here reading remembers an episode of The Flintsones in which the little martian guy (what was his name? . . . The Grand Kazoo, or something like that? . . . hmm) cloned Fred Flintstone into hundreds and hundreds of robotic Fred Flinstones. These legions of empty-eyed clones (memes, anyone?) walked around and stiffly and all monotone-like uttered the phrase "yabba . . . . dabba . . . . doo" . . . . . . . . .
"yabba . . . . dabba . . . . doo" . . . . . . . . .
"yabba . . . . dabba . . . . doo" . . . . . . . . .
"yabba . . . . dabba . . . . doo" . . . . . . . . .
"yabba . . . . dabba . . . . doo" . . . . . . . . .
over and over again . . .


peace be with you
I mean that sincerely

Ó

 

[MOD EDIT - fixed quote]

No he doesn't, Christos . . . you are a student of early christianity . . . . look at every one of his quotes . . . and tell me . . . which one provided disproof ( or even any evidence against) Markan priority?

I'm dead serious, dude . . . parse the quotes . . . they are all arguments for apostolic provenance . . . and not one of them is an argument against Markan priority (well . . . except the one that damages his chronology).

I don't doubt that our friend totus is a kind and a good gentleman, but a consistent apologist, he is not.

By the way, Christo . . . I noticed that we signed on to this merry-go-round on the same day . . . . cheers!

 

Ó

 

Aww . . . i think somebody is projecting . . .

 

p.s. argh

 

It IS bigoted. And furthermore, until you have a argument other than "you are on some misguided crusade!" to show that it is not bigoted, you are just grunting and throwing branches and sticks up into the air, like some self-proclaimed alpha silberback, who is clearly engaging precisely in the conduct that he is accusing ME of.

First. I did not ignore it completely. I addressed your point. You did not find to your satisfaction my insistence that I was not angry at him when he used the OT term. Get over it! A corrective need not be angry. I promise I had forgiven him the blunder I was pointing out at that point . . . cross my heart and hope to die.

Second, I don't think anyone is persecuting me . . . honest.

It's all in your head, dude.

As creative as you, you mean?

Nah, I could never hope to rise to that level, being a worm like I am and all, but I'll strive to be more clever. Just for you.

But I'll draw your attention to the fact that you have contributed even less to the thread by your ad hominem rant, using forty-six times the number of words that I wasted on mine. The sigh you hated so much was useful in expressing my frustration at the person who I was addressing who was just serving up more doctrinal utterances instead of real evidence. I was in the middle of conversation when I sighed. There was a context for it. You instead are just an angry disruptive interloper who has taken a liking for me now. Great . . . I never had a stalker obsess over me before. I always wondered what they were like.

So far . . . I don't have a very good opinion of them. 

You were saying something about drama?

Ok tough, guy. That last touch was especially menacing. Could you sense my sheer dread?

 

At this point, I'd like to request that we get back on track of what we were discussing, if it's okay with everyone else.

By my quoting the old Christian platitude which teaches that we should hate the sin and not the sinner, I was very clear in expressing my opinion that it is the teaching that is bigoted, not necessarily you personally. I don't wish to call you a bigot. But I strongly feel that a theological outlook which holds that the Christian additions to the Hebrew scriptures somehow supercede them is repugnant (fulfillment? . . . . "It's okay fellows, the texts that you've held to be holy and divinely true for fifteen hundred years ? . . . . we'll take it from here . . . we've just fulfilled them with this guy we think was messiah, even though we don't really understand what your concept of a messiah is really for . . . etc . . . etc . . . thanks for your scriptures to put in the front of ours . . . they sure make our books seem so much more weighty . . . . we'll take it from here, though . . . . )

That's not fulfillement . . . that's co-option . . . this magically promotes the decidedly heretic offshoot to the position of THE orthodox ("right belief" in greek). It is one of the most shameful aspects of Christian history, as far as I'm concerned, being one of the teachings directly responsible for much tragedy and suffering during the Inquisition and the Shoah and other equally grossly unjust and murderous atrociticies though the centuries.

Does this mean that you don't mean to correct your conduct but instead accept this injustice as normative and intend to continue promulgating that which has been shown to you to be unjust by definition?

Stated differently . . . is it okay to be a bigot, as long as it's in favor of the home team? I'll leave that between you and your g-shidea.

You didn't read it, did you?

It was comissioned by the pope in the ealry 90s because the church's criteria for interpretation, as you demonstrated in your citing the Catechism, was vague at best and left some things undefined. Even so, that which you quote from in fact only supports my point that the church doesn't accept a literalist reading . . .

" . . . The sacred authors, in writing the four Gospels, selected certain of the many elements which had been handed on, either orally or already in written form; others they synthesized or explained with an eye to the situation of the churches, while sustaining the form of preaching, but always in such a fashion that they have told us the honest truth about Jesus."

let me focus on the pertinent phrase here:

" . . . others they synthesized or explained with an eye to the situation of the churches, while sustaining the form of preaching . . ."

Please, read the document I gave you a link to. It was written to elucidate the teachings within the catechism you cite from. It is a Catholic document written in language that is very dense and somewhat technical, but it's nothing you can't handle.

Further, I don't deny that there is truth in there (i.e.- the gospels - even I find inspiration in some of the teachings contained therein - but that's not the point here). I only deny there is a literal historical record there. Something can be "true", yet not historically literal, as you yourself point out in your admission that the Eden and Job stories aren't literal. Poetry is truth too.

Also, it goes to show that, while it doesn't forbid such literalist interpretation outright . . . the church strongly discourages that viewpoint.

I'm looking at my sources and cannot find this mentioned. I'll certainly research this further the next time i visit the university's library. It would help me greatly if you told me where you got this citation from (the actual published volume, please), to save me some time. I would sincerely appreciate that. Right now, I doubt that it might be relevant to Markan priority, basing my doubt on the fact that of all of the quotes you offered so far to deny Markan priority, only one actually had anything to do with Markan priority at all.

 

Again . . . I ask for a citation here.

 

Moreover, even if you provided these citations that I ask of you, the dates you give them only show that my original point was correct, that a postulation of Markan priority preceded a postulation of Q as a source. This continues to defeat your own position that Markan priority "rests" on Q.

 

So . . . . first you implied that acceptance of Q is a pre-requisite for Markan priority, now you say that "the vast majority" of Markan priorists use Q as a proof for it (for which statement you provide no evidence). If I provided you with a short list of scholars who don't accept Q but accept Markan priority (I can if you like - the two-source model is not the onlt defense of Markan priority), then maybe you'll like to change this to "most of them accept it".

The truth is . . . You don't really know what percentage of scholars who accept Markan priority accept Q as a source, do you?

The bottom line point, though, is that a postulation of Markan priority does not "rest" on a postulation of Q. Q is a result of the conclusions derived from Markan priority . . . . NOT the other way around.

Well . . . the gospel that bears Luke's name says that "many compiled an orderly narrative". This is NOT describing oral tradition, this implies textual sources. Oral traditions are not "compiled" yet. THAT is what makes them "oral". Once compiled, they are textual sources.

Your positing of only Matthew and this oral tradition as Luke's only sources begs several questions. The first of which is:

By which criteria can you specifically single out these sources and reject all other possibilities.

Finally, you bring up arguments for a harmonization of the dating of Jesus' birth according to Matt and to Luke. I show you that such a harmonization is untenable when one examines the evidence objectively. You just dropped it at that point.

Then you intimate that Markan priority is indefensible, but all of the quotes you provide as evidence for that not only DON't disprove the priority of Mark, but they don't even have anything at all to do with Markan priority.

Unless you can stick to the subject at hand and stop digressing, it will become progressively difficult to engage you in any kind of serious debate on these issues.

Stay on track when you debate, please.

peace to you

 

Ó

 

 

 

Yes . . . . Papias says that Matthew wrote a collection of logia -sayings - in Aramaic (what he likely meant by the Hebrew tongue). I don't think Matthew fits his description.
So . . . if what he's talking about isn't the Matthew we have, I'm left wondering what that document he was talking about. I'm not saying that it is necessarily Q, but I will say that it is NOT the gospel of Matthew that we know and love.

To call Matthew a collection of "logia" is an inadequate understatement and serves only to uphold the "historicity" of Papias' witness to GºMatthew via Eusebius.

Continued irrelevant patristic quotations only "seem" to strengthen one's argument. They don't, especially when they don't have anything to do with the subject at hand. I realize that the illusion of weightiness is important to the orthodox take on this, but in the end, it's best to call it what it is . . . . a smokescreen.

On a tangential note, I find the fact that Eusebius called Papias an idiot in his "History of the Church" ("a man of exceedingly small intelligence" - to be more precise) sort of amusing.

Also . . . . since you require a copy of Q handed to you before you'll consider its existence, should I in turn demand a copy of the book mentioned by Papias?

To use your own question: Where is it?

And while you are at it.

Where was the Gospel of Thomas before 1947? Where was it before we found that tiny fragment in 1898 (and didn't know what it was)?

You are really good at presenting the Catholic answers to the problems raised (even though you go one step further and became a literalist - something which the church explicitly discourages).

Fortunately, the historical research continues and contradicts this teaching you keep defending. I'm not going to play the "let's exchange authorities" game on this. I can quote as many frenchmen to oppose your "Hebrew Matthew" assertion . . . and i can even raise you a German or two . . .

One of my favorite sayings attributed to Jesus says something like, "bring things from shadow into the light so that you may see them" . . . or something like that.

Evidence trumps authority. Evidence trumps tradition.

Every time.

You'll be happy to hear that I'm going to drop the thread now (laughs). I have reviewed the slight evidence for Matthean priority and have contrasted it to the evidence for Markan priority and conclude that the latter is much more compelling, not because I wish to usurp church teaching, but because it makes more sense of many of the peculiarities of form and content and similarities between these decidedly inter-related texts, the most important of which (for my position) is Mark's copious use of chiasmi to wrap around his pericopes . . . . that's the smoking gun for me . . . . Matthean priority does not even begin to explain these to me . . . . Markan priority simply makes more sense . . . . rationally, historically, logically, etc. It's no surprise that it is almost universally accepted, even by the most conservative of scholars.

This isn't the first time that someone feebly defends Matthean priority to me. It IS, however, the first time that someone has argued for it citing a bunch of patristic fathers, of which only one citation has anything to do with priority at all. It gets old.

Oh, and by the way . . . . as I pointed out to you, Clement of Alexandria (who incidentally was writing around 150 and therefore is a remote first-mention of the order of the gospels) gives a non-committed listing, placing equal claim to primacy to the "two geneology" gospels. This might be a significant evasion on his part, n'est c'est pas? Your misquoting him as listing Matthew first is more indication (as if there isn't enough already) that your positions are ones based on a biased need for reality to coincide with church teaching.

Besides all this . . . . . . I thought this was about Quirinius and Herod . . . .

peace out . . . .

Ó
(walks away whistling the Ockam's Razor Blues. . .)

None of the early Christians disprove the Markan priority. I was just trying to be courteous. Intellectual snobbery gets you nowhere.  

Quite so for Paul.  But my assertion was that the original Gospel of Matthew, which I contend was the first Gospel written, was written in Hebrew.  I never mentioned Paul.

Would you be able to pass on which textual critics and perhaps any online articles on this?  It's the first time I've ever heard this and it sounds interesting.