Here Is Why I Don't Believe

[Ouroboros]

Another note FYI for all interested. The oldest fragment of papyrus is the Rylands Library Papyrus P52, or St. John's Fragment, link, and it's dated to the mid second century.

 

A few believe the Magdalene Papyrus is older, from first century, but is commonly believed to be 2-3 century. link

 

So these copies, are copies of copies, they're not complete eyewitness accounts. They're "reprints" of older documents, and there are many signs of modifications and embellishments in there. So how can one trust these to be the Documents From God for the Ultimate and Final Message to Humanity?

 

The only way is to consider these documents as documents by Humans, to explain the experience of the spiritual, and not a true, real, historical event. It's the experience that's important. How the story moves you. How you can copy and live the life of Jesus, just a like watching a good movie. It will move you and transform you to a different person. That's the purpose of the message.

[Mythra]

65-80 Gospel of Mark

80-100 Gospel of Matthew

80-130 Gospel of Luke

90-120 Gospel of John

 

OK, Kat - now look at the late dating on these gospels. That means that there is a chance that Mark was written in 80 C.E., Matthew in 100 C.E., Luke in 130 C.E. and John in 120 C.E.

 

Assuming these disciples were the same age as Jesus, if you adhere to the "eyewitness testimony" stance and accept the historicity of the gospels - then Matthew was written by a 100 year old man, Luke by a 130 year old man, and John by a 120 year old man.

 

I'm not sure what life expectancy was in first century Palestine - but I'm pretty sure it wasn't 130 years.

 

It is highly likely that all of these gospels (as well as Thomas, Peter, Mary, Pontius Pilate, etc) are all pseudepigraphic. Their names were assigned to the writing to give it more weight. If a saying was thought to have come from John the apostle, it got a lot more respect than if it were written by Cerinthus from Egypt. (who may have been the actual author) The Roman presbyter, Cauis, writing a few years after Ireneaus in the second century, attributed the book (John) to Cerinthus.

 

If the four canonical gospels were written by Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John - it's extremely odd that no one mentioned them by these four names until Irenaeus, around 180 C.E.

 

Justin Martyr, in his "Dialogue with Trypho" writes about "memoirs of the apostles" in 150 C.E., and he does not recognize them as "Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John". For all we know, "memoirs of the apostles" could be referring to the Gospel of Thomas or the Gospel of Peter, or some other writings that we are no longer even aware of.

[Mythra]

There is no physical Q document. It's existence is a guess by Bible scholars.

 

If you want to learn something really interesting - research the parallels between Q1 (the first layering of sayings attributed to Jesus) and the teachings of Cynicism. Antisthenes of Athens and Diogenes of Sinope founded the Cynics a generation after Socrates. Q1's sayings are unmistakeably borrowed from Greek Cynicism.

 

The Hellenistic influences in the gospels are unknown to most christians. Not commonly discussed in Sunday School.

 

Price's "Deconstructing Jesus" goes into this at length.

[Open_Minded]

There is no physical Q document. It's existence is a guess by Bible scholars.

 

JeffXL ... a few things.

1. You're right there is no physical Q document
   
2. 2. It's existence is a lot of things - but using the word "guess" is pushing it.
   

Q may (or may not) be an actual physical document. There is much scholarly debate about that, as well there should be.

 

But, the most widely accepted solution to the synoptic problem is the Two Source Hypothesis. It is a hypothesis developed through the same type of Source criticism which came up with the Documentary Hypothesis. Be very careful about using the word "guess" in relationship to these issues.

 

Source criticism is a lot of things - but it is NOT guess work. It is a literary methodology. See the following Wikipedia articles regarding Source criticism and the Two Source Hypothesis:

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Source_criticism

Source criticism

 

Source Criticism is an aspect of historical criticism, a method of literary study used especially in the field of biblical criticism that seeks to understand a literary piece better by attempting to establish the sources used by the author and/or redactor who put the literary piece together. Sometimes biblical scholars use the term literary criticism as a synonym for source criticism.

 

Two-source hypothesis

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Two-source_hypothesis

 

The Two-Source Hypothesis is the most commonly accepted solution to the synoptic problem among biblical scholars, which posits that there are two sources to Gospel of Matthew and Gospel of Luke: the Gospel of Mark and a lost, hypothetical sayings collection called Q.

 

Calling the existence of Q a "guess" is no different than saying the Documentary Hypothesis is a "Guess". There is methodology involved in buiilding the hypothesis, not guess work.

[Ouroboros]

It is highly likely that all of these gospels (as well as Thomas, Peter, Mary, Pontius Pilate, etc) are all pseudepigraphic. Their names were assigned to the writing to give it more weight. If a saying was thought to have come from John the apostle, it got a lot more respect than if it were written by Cerinthus from Egypt. (who may have been the actual author) The Roman presbyter, Cauis, writing a few years after Ireneaus in the second century, attributed the book (John) to Cerinthus.

And there's a possibility that the Paul epistles were too.

 

Justin Martyr, in his "Dialogue with Trypho" writes about "memoirs of the apostles" in 150 C.E., and he does not recognize them as "Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John". For all we know, "memoirs of the apostles" could be referring to the Gospel of Thomas or the Gospel of Peter, or some other writings that we are no longer even aware of.

Notice. It doesn't say "memoirs of the disciples". I think there is a clear distinction between what was considered apostles and disciples.

 

The Apostles were teachers, or leaders of a church or a cult, maybe taken from the Essene group.

 

While the Gospels are the ones that invents the disciple, students, of Jesus.

[JeffXL]

 

I was once impressed by such literary bullshit, but until the magical Q documents are presented-- be they written on stone, papyrus, even clay-- it is made up crap. Christians AGAIN finding ways to cover the lies and inconsistencies of the Whole Bile.

 

It's still sickens me how much time I wasted on this garbage.

 

There is no physical Q document. It's existence is a guess by Bible scholars.

 

If you want to learn something really interesting - research the parallels between Q1 (the first layering of sayings attributed to Jesus) and the teachings of Cynicism. Antisthenes of Athens and Diogenes of Sinope founded the Cynics a generation after Socrates. Q1's sayings are unmistakeably borrowed from Greek Cynicism.

 

The Hellenistic influences in the gospels are unknown to most christians. Not commonly discussed in Sunday School.

 

Price's "Deconstructing Jesus" goes into this at length.

 

Thank you! I was not aware of the connection! Sounds like a great birthday present for me (less than a month away)!

 

BTW, Mythra, every one of your posts kicks ass.

[Mythra]

Thanks, Jeff.

 

Here are some of the "teachings" of "Jesus" that didn't originate with Jesus. They are a product of greek philosophy and thought - cynics in particular:

 

Blessed are the poor

Be kind to your enemies

Do not resist an evil person, give to anyone who asks

A good tree does not bear bad fruit

No place to lay my head

Love of money is the root of all evil

Do not greet anyone while walking along the road

Seek and you will find

Nothing is hidden that will not one day be known

Do not be anxious about your life

He who tries to preserve his life will lose it

[JeffXL]

Thanks, Jeff.

 

Here are some of the "teachings" of "Jesus" that didn't originate with Jesus. They are a product of greek philosophy and thought - cynics in particular:

 

Blessed are the poor

Be kind to your enemies

Do not resist an evil person, give to anyone who asks

A good tree does not bear bad fruit

No place to lay my head

Love of money is the root of all evil

Do not greet anyone while walking along the road

Seek and you will find

Nothing is hidden that will not one day be known

Do not be anxious about your life

He who tries to preserve his life will lose it

 

That is great!

 

It's been soooo long, since I read this, but wasn't there a Stoic (Roman, I think) who noticed that Christians were being nice to the poor as the Stoics were?

[Open_Minded]

I was once impressed by such literary bullshit, but until the magical Q documents are presented-- be they written on stone, papyrus, even clay-- it is made up crap. Christians AGAIN finding ways to cover the lies and inconsistencies of the Whole Bile.

 

It's still sickens me how much time I wasted on this garbage.

 

And so, by your definition, Source criticism as "literary bullshit", we can write off the Documentary Hypothesis as bullshit and assume Moses wrote the first books of the Old Testament?

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Source_criticism

Among the more famous or controversial examples of source criticism include:

 

The Documentary Hypothesis that posits that the narratives of the Pentateuch consists primarily four sources labeled J, E, D, and P

The division of the book of Isaiah into original Isaiah, Deutero-Isaiah, and Trito-Isaiah

The identification of sources used by various writers of the Gospels (see the Synoptic Problem)

 

Give me a break, Jeff. If some literalist fundie came in here spouting that Moses wrote the first books of the OT, you'd jump on the bandwagon of Documentary Hypotheses (and for good reason). But - the minute the same methodology is used to show another document behind two gospels - you call it literary bullshit?

 

See... that just pisses me off. I get so fed up with literalists - from both sides of the fence - pulling out standard - peer reviewed scholarship - to defend their cause. But, the minute it disagrees with their premise calling it biased bullshit.

 

If you want to throw out the "Q" document as bullshit - that's fine. But, then throw out "J", "E", "D", and "P". Because the same methodology that was used to define the documents behind the OT writings was also used to posit the existence of "Q".

 

And anyway you cut it, Jeff; you're in an extreme minority.

 

It isn't the scholarship that bugs you, it's the fact that Matthew and Luke - very highly likely - contain many verses that predate Mark.

 

Either be willing to dump "J", "E", "D" and "P" - or accept "Q". You can't have it both ways.

[Mythra]

OM is right, Jeff.

 

Matthew and Luke get lots of their information from Mark. But there are other passages that are common to Matthew and Luke (including very precise wording and phrasing) that are not present in Mark. These came from somewhere. A source. A "quelle". Q.

 

As opposed to the gospel of John. Where the entire thing was pulled out of someone's ass.

[JeffXL]

Either be willing to dump "J", "E", "D" and "P" - or accept "Q". You can't have it both ways.

 

I am in a minority.

 

As for being a literatist: Unless there is something physical to back up a source, I will not buy it. I am so sick and tired of Christians using the worst of the worst: "hermeneutics" and "exegesis." Can't reconcile this jumbled puke? Make shit up! Er, I mean, interpret it! And make it sound respectable! Hermeneutics sounds scholarly! Better yet: pull out the old "The Aramaic/Hebrew/Greek word is..." Yes, yes, I did that, too, until I realized how dishonest I was being.

 

One of my reasons for distrusting this is thanks to the truly bizarre and bullshit rantings of Leo Strauss.

 

OM, I think you are great, but don't think that I would ever say Moses wrote the Pentateuch.

 

I have dumped the alphabet soup of source pretending.

 

This view o' mine may be a result of my feeling so bad for feeling so dishonest after I stopped spouting all sorts of stuff like this. At the time, I felt so high-minded and academic.

 

I would not at all be surprised if there is a Q, I just need to see it. Indeed, as Mythra has pointed out, a source for identical phrasing could point to a shared source.

 

Christianity makes my mind mad.

 

EDIT: Because you two excellent people strongly support the Q hypothesis, I'm going to re-research it and see if I stand corrected.

[Open_Minded]

OM, I think you are great, but don't think that I would ever say Moses wrote the Pentateuch.

 

That is exactly my point - and you should NEVER say Moses wrote the Pentateuch - I'd stand right next to you and defend the premise that he didn't. You know that.

 

But, your statement makes my point. It doesn't make sense to accept source criticsm in one area of the Bible and call it "bullshit" in another area.

 

This view o' mine may be a result of my feeling so bad for feeling so dishonest after I stopped spouting all sorts of stuff like this. At the time, I felt so high-minded and academic.

 

I would not at all be surprised if there is a Q, I just need to see it. Indeed, as Mythra has pointed out, a source for identical phrasing could point to a shared source.

 

I agree - with Mythra. You haven't noticed me taking Mythra to task. It's because Mythra stands on solid ground with the scholarship. We may draw different personal conclusions around the scholarship - but in the end we both respect it. That's all I ask.

 

Ancient history - in any culture - is full of gray areas. Simply due to the lack of extant physical evidence. There will always be debate about what actually happened "on the ground" 1000s of years ago. I guess that's why the literary scholarship means so much to me - it is a very valid and systematic way to explore ancient history - in the face of meager extant physical evidence.

 

Christianity makes my mind mad.

 

Jeff - I'm sorry you still have such strong feelings about your experiences with Christianity. I really am. In all my time on this board, in reading of all the different experiences people have coming out of a literalist background - well it just makes my head spin. That one sentence alone brought tears to my eyes because I can only imagine the pain behind it.

[JeffXL]

Jeff - I'm sorry you still have such strong feelings about your experiences with Christianity. I really am. In all my time on this board, in reading of all the different experiences people have coming out of a literalist background - well it just makes my head spin. That one sentence alone brought tears to my eyes because I can only imagine the pain behind it.

 

Yeah, I'm thinking my very strong reaction to all this may be part of my Christian damage. With scholars holding a tenable position, I've dealt with too many Xtians who jump off of that and really pull shit out of their asses.

[Open_Minded]

Jeff - I'm sorry you still have such strong feelings about your experiences with Christianity. I really am. In all my time on this board, in reading of all the different experiences people have coming out of a literalist background - well it just makes my head spin. That one sentence alone brought tears to my eyes because I can only imagine the pain behind it.

 

Yeah, I'm thinking my very strong reaction to all this may be part of my Christian damage. With scholars holding a tenable position, I've dealt with too many Xtians who jump off of that and really pull shit out of their asses.

 

Now - THAT - I can relate to.

[Antlerman]

 

I was once impressed by such literary bullshit, but until the magical Q documents are presented-- be they written on stone, papyrus, even clay-- it is made up crap. Christians AGAIN finding ways to cover the lies and inconsistencies of the Whole Bile.

 

It's still sickens me how much time I wasted on this garbage.

??? Are you saying that there is nothing to the scholarship that seeing a common external source document in use in Matthew and Luke, evidenced by there identical use of language in a translated language? I don't see this as some sort of Christian apologetic at all. It's a credible line of literary criticism.

 

I heard it said this way about the possible "Q" document, that for someone two different people to translate from one language into another and have exactly the same translated words in scores of verses is practically impossible. The fact that Luke and Matthew use the identical translated words in Greek indicates they were working of a common translated document as their "source" or the German word for source "Quelle", or "Q" for short.

 

To me, this shows the humanness of the works, and casts divine inspiration direct from God into the hands of Matthew a fanciful idea without support.

 

As far as not accepting that Q may have existed without seeing it, do we see black holes themselves, or do we know they probably exist based on indications? I can easily see the Q existed based on the indications mentioned above.

[Kuroikaze]

 

??? Are you saying that there is nothing to the scholarship that seeing a common external source document in use in Matthew and Luke, evidenced by there identical use of language in a translated language? I don't see this as some sort of Christian apologetic at all. It's a credible line of literary criticism.

 

I heard it said this way about the possible "Q" document, that for someone two different people to translate from one language into another and have exactly the same translated words in scores of verses is practically impossible. The fact that Luke and Matthew use the identical translated words in Greek indicates they were working of a common translated document as their "source" or the German word for source "Quelle", or "Q" for short.

 

To me, this shows the humanness of the works, and casts divine inspiration direct from God into the hands of Matthew a fanciful idea without support.

 

As far as not accepting that Q may have existed without seeing it, do we see black holes themselves, or do we know they probably exist based on indications? I can easily see the Q existed based on the indications mentioned above.

 

yeah this is a good point, most fundamentalist christians deny "Q" because it creates problems with inerrancy claims. "Q" seems pretty reasonable to me considering that we know the church tried to destory many of the non-canoical gospels. Iraenieus and many 2nd century church leaders often mention gospels and other literary works we no longer have.

 

One thing to consider is that "Q" might not even be one document. It could have just as easily been 2 or 3 documents. All it really is a logical conclusion that since Luke and Mathiew share common launguge and style in many sections they must have copied from same sources.

[Open_Minded]

Hello Everyone:

 

Jumping back in here ...

 

Just my opinion - but - I think what happened here was that Jeff and I inadvertently hit each other's sore spots.

 

I am an avid fan of ancient history. Not just middle eastern ancient history - ALL ancient history.

 

And I've a real sore spot when people treat the study of ancient history as if conclusions are just yanked out of someone's hat.

 

Literary scholarship - including source criticsm - are valid and challenging fields of study. The work is not unlike what one would find at an archealogical dig. If one is doing one's job correctly (with source criticsm and an archealogical dig) then one is digging through "layers" of history. Source criticsm is one major tool scholars have for determining different "layers" of a final document. The "layers" closest to the event in question are the "layers" which are most reliable.

 

Anyway - it is offensive to the study of any ancient literature to just write off scholarly concensus as "bullshit". And so - Jeff - unintentionally hit a sore spot with me.

 

I am sure I hit one of his sore spots as well - given his response to me. See the following.....

 

This view o' mine may be a result of my feeling so bad for feeling so dishonest after I stopped spouting all sorts of stuff like this. At the time, I felt so high-minded and academic.

 

I would not at all be surprised if there is a Q, I just need to see it. Indeed, as Mythra has pointed out, a source for identical phrasing could point to a shared source.

 

Christianity makes my mind mad.

 

Jef also acknowledged Mythra had a point for identical phrasing and later edited his post with the following:

 

EDIT: Because you two excellent people strongly support the Q hypothesis, I'm going to re-research it and see if I stand corrected.

 

For my own part - the posts from earlier are very strong knee-jerk reactions. Reactions stemming from my own frustrations at the lack of respect for the amount of work that goes into literary analysis of ancient historical documents. Literalists (not only in Christianity - but in other religions and other areas of life as well) routinely dismiss scholarship - and it simply offends me. It offends the sense of honor that I've always given to ancient history.

 

Jeff - may also have had a quick knee-jerk reaction - I'll let him speak to that himself.

 

At any rate - I've learned a few lessons this morning. The first being to hold my fire until I know where the next person is coming from.

 

(I've a quick temper - so I can't promise I'll remember the lesson for any longer than 24 hours)

 

And hopefully we've all learned a bit more about the "Q" source.....

[Ouroboros]

(I've a quick temper - so I can't promise I'll remember the lesson for any longer than 24 hours)

 

And hopefully we've all learned a bit more about the "Q" source.....

OM, I hold you in great respect, just so you know. And I'm quick to temper too. I'm usually the one with the short fuse.

 

Anyhoo, I just heard there are some scholars that are disputing the Q source, but I don't know how serious the criticism is. Have you heard about this?

[Kuroikaze]

Hello Everyone:

 

Jumping back in here ...

 

Just my opinion - but - I think what happened here was that Jeff and I inadvertently hit each other's sore spots.

 

I am an avid fan of ancient history. Not just middle eastern ancient history - ALL ancient history.

 

And I've a real sore spot when people treat the study of ancient history as if conclusions are just yanked out of someone's hat.

 

Literary scholarship - including source criticsm - are valid and challenging fields of study. The work is not unlike what one would find at an archealogical dig. If one is doing one's job correctly (with source criticsm and an archealogical dig) then one is digging through "layers" of history. Source criticsm is one major tool scholars have for determining different "layers" of a final document. The "layers" closest to the event in question are the "layers" which are most reliable.

 

 

Don't worry about it too much, I'm an avid fan of ancient history as well, I studied middle eastern history for the most part in college since I was a religion major, but lately I've mostly been focusing on Asian history.

 

I've studied source criticsm plenty so you don't have do convince me at least that it is valid.

 

 

Anyhoo, I just heard there are some scholars that are disputing the Q source, but I don't know how serious the criticism is. Have you heard about this?

 

 

haha, its pretty unlikely that you woudn't find some scholars disputing ANY claim...I think scholars just like to argue with each other.

 

Seriously though, I have no idea how serious the criticism is. The only critiques I've heard came from fundamenatilst christians. Though I'm sure there are others who have critiqued it.

[Ouroboros]

I found the book I heard about: Questioning Q.

 

I'm going to take a look who this dude is.

 

Ah. He's a Bishop of Durham.

[SkepticOfBible]

Whether it is from Roman court records, personal correspondence (letters) or a front page story from the Jerusalem Daily News, find something, ANYTHING, writern at the time that confirms the NT story. Remember, the more credible the source, the more conviencing. (a reference to a document in the archives of Oxford University carries a lot more weight than one from Joes Community College)

 

I am still waiting for Historical evidence described in the Gospel of Mark, where there was big earthquake and zombies walked out of the caves?

 

You would bet if something on that scaled happened, some Pagan/Jewish historians would have written about it, even if they wrote from their point of view eg "Demons arose to fight our Gods"

 

 

Kat, with regards to the miracles being accepted by Jews. I would like to point out to (Deut 13;18)

 

 

Deuteronomy 13:1 The entire word that I command you, that shall you observe to do; you shall not add to it and you shall not subtract from it. [2] If there should stand up in your midst a prophet or a dreamer of a dream, and he will produce to you a sign or a wonder, [3] and the sign or the wonder comes about, of which he spoke to you, saying "Let us follow gods of others that you did not know and we shall worship them!7quot; [4] do not hearken to the words of that prophet or to that dreamer of a dream, for HASHEM, your G-d, is testing you to know whether you love HASHEM, your G-d with all your heart and with all your soul. [5] HASHEM, your G-d, shall you follow and Him shall you fear; His commandments shall you observe and to His voice shall you hearken; Him shall you serve and to Him shall you cleave. [6] And that prophet and that dreamer of a dream shall be put to death, for he had spoken perversion against HASHEM, your G-d Who takes you out of the land of Egypt, and Who redeems you from the house of slavery to make you stray from the path on which HASHEM, you G-d, has commanded you to go; and you shall destroy the evil from your midst

 

Deuteronomy 18:15 A prophet from your midst, from your brethren, like me, shall HASHEM, your G-d, establish for you to him shall you hearken. [16] According to all that you asked of HASHEM, your G-d, in Horeb on the day of the congregation, saying, "I can no longer hear the voice of HASHEM, my G-d, and this great fire I can no longer see, so that I shall not die." [17] Then HASHEM said to me: They have done well in what they have said. [18] I will establish a prophet for them from among their brethren, like you, and I will place My words in his mouth; He shall speak to them everything that I will command him. [19] And it shall be that the man who will not hearken to My words that he shall speak in My name, I will exact from him, [20] But the prophet who willfully shall speak a word in My name, that which I have not commanded him to speak, or who shall speak in the name of the gods of others that prophet shall die. [21] When you say in your heart, "How can we know the word that HASHEM has not spoken?" [22] If the prophet will speak in the Name of HASHEM and that thing will not occur and not come about that is the word that HASHEM has not spoken; with willfulness has the prophet spoken it, you should not fear him.

 

From a Jewish point of view(especially the 3rd centuary), it wasn't a impossibility that non-jews could produce signs or do miracles. It was what the prophet had said that the jews were supposed to take into account.

 

ie

 

1)If the prophet did not teach according to the Torah (which Jesus and Paul did)

2)If the prophet taught them to worship a God other than their forefathers knew(Singular God who does not take a form of a man).

3)If the prophet gave a false prophecy(which again Jesus and Paul did)

 

Therefore according to Deaut 13;18, Jesus was declared a false prophet by the scripture. Remember even Moses could not explain the miracles done by Pharoah's Magicians, so according to Jewish theologians, they were equating Jesus to these sort of mysteries.

[Open_Minded]

I found the book I heard about: Questioning Q.

 

I'm going to take a look who this dude is.

 

Ah. He's a Bishop of Durham.

 

HanSolo ... this book is looks at Q from the Farrer hypothesis. The Farrer hypothesis is not as widely accepted as the Two Source (Q) hypothesis.

 

Basically the Farrer Hypothesis states that the commonalities between Matthew and Luke can be explained if Luke used Mark and Matthew for sources. As Antlerman said in another post...

 

I heard it said this way about the possible "Q" document, that for someone two different people to translate from one language into another and have exactly the same translated words in scores of verses is practically impossible.

 

On the surface the Farrer Hypothesis is a simpler solution. Why wouldn't it be possible for Luke to use Mark and Matthew as source material? And on the surface I've no problem with that conclusion. But, as I said earlier, the study of ancient history is NOT about what is on the surface. It goes much deeper.

 

Do you remember the discussion of Mark, oral history and legend before .... when I posted the following and a link?

 

http://www.sbl-site.org/Publications/JBL/JBL1233.pdf

Fourth, the Gospel of Mark works well as oral literature. It is of an appropriate length for oral performance. A storyteller could learn it from simply hearing it performed. As I and others have argued elsewhere, its composition consists of oral composition techniques. Briefly, the story consists of happenings that can be easily visualized and thus readily remembered. It consists of short episodes connected paratactically. The narrative is additive and aggregative. Teaching is not gathered into discourses according to topic but rather embedded in short narratives, which is the way oral cultures remember teaching. Indeed, I would suggest that it is the lack of a more literate chronological and topical order that Papias had in mind when he said Mark’s story was “not in order,” ou mentoi taxei (Eusebius, Hist. eccl. 3.39.15). It followed oral ordering procedures, not proper rhetorical form. The plot as well as the style is typical of oral composition.17 The structure does not build toward a linear climactic plot; the plot to kill Jesus is first introduced in Mark 3:6 but not picked up and developed until Mark 11, and it does not really get under way until Mark 14. Rather than linear plot development, the structure consists of repetitive patterns, series of three parallel episodes, concentric structures, and chiastic structures. Such structures are characteristic of oral literature, helping the performer, the audience, and new performers and audiences remember and transmit the material. From what we know of oral literature there is no reason why it could not have been composed and transmitted in oral form. Thus, it is certainly possible—I would say probable—that Mark was an orally composed narrative. As John Miles Foley, among others, has shown, it is possible to write in an oral register, and there is no foolproof way of deciding if a particular text was composed orally or in writing. But there is no need for writing to create the Gospel of Mark. Indeed, the distinguished scholar of oral literature Albert B. Lord noted that the Synoptic Gospels seemed to him to “have the appearance of three oral traditional variants of the same narrative and non-narrative materials.” Whether or not it was composed orally, the Gospel of Mark was undoubtedly transmitted through oral re-performance....

 

Following is another excerpt from that same site:

Folklorists and students of oral literature also stress the importance of the individual performer and the influence he or she has on the performance. J. S. Mbiti writes about storytelling in Kenya: Each person will tell the same story differently, since he has to make it personal and not simply a mechanical repetition of what he has heard or narrated before. He becomes not only a “repeater” but also a “creative” originator of each story. . . . The plot of the story and the sequence of its main parts remain the same, but the narrator has to supply meat to this skeleton. This he will do in the choice of words, the speed of reciting, the imagery he uses, the varying of his voice, the gestures. . . . The narrator puts his personality into the story, thus making it uniquely his own creation.

 

 

Now here's the thing ....

1. Antlerman and Mythra are right - there are scores of common verses between Matthew and Luke that use the same language - word-for-word.
   
2. When scholars pull Q out of context and put it side-by-side the commonalities between Matthew and Luke point to a SAYINGS source. And this is VERY important. SAYINGS sources were often the first layer of an oral tradition. Thomas is a sayings document. Part of the argument for an early dating of Thomas is that it resembles a 1st layer document - early in that it is only sayings of Jesus with very little narrative, plot, etc..
   
3. Following layers of a tradition would add onto the sayings - building stories, plots, etc...
   
4. So, my problem with assuming that Luke used Mark and Matthew as sources (and that is why Matthew and Luke share the exact same wording around the SAYINGS of Jesus) is this - WHY WOULD LUKE COPY THE EXACT SAME WORDS AROUND THE SAYINGS OF JESUS - BUT THEN - STOP COPYING MATTHEW AND INSERT HIS OWN DETAILS SURROUNDING THE SAYINGS. IT JUST DOESN'T MAKE SENSE.
   

I mean from a common sense point of view - you're sitting there copying 1000s of words of text in a painstaking manner. It is gruesome work from any stand point - there are no computers or word processors. You going along - you get to the Beatitudes.... The introduction to the Beatitudes in Matthew is as follows...

 

Seeing the crowds, he went up on the mountain, and when he sat down his disciples came to him... And he opened his mouth and taught them, saying:

 

And - as a scribe - you change the introduction to say in Luke ....

 

And he came down with them and stood on a level place, with a great crowd of his disciples and a great multitude of people from all Judea and Jerusalem and the seacoast of Tyre and Sidon, who came to hear him and to be healed of their diseases; 6.18 and those who were troubled with unclean spirits were cured. 6.19 And all the crowd sought to touch him, for power came forth from him and healed them all.

 

So... here's this scribe - supposedly copying from Matthew the EXACT wording for Jesus' SAYINGS - but when it comes to the plot, to the settings, to the context around the SAYINGS of Jesus - suddenly we have many and varied differences?

 

I don't buy it - it makes no sense if one is looking at things from the perspective of the way stories develop. That the 1st layer - is an oral tradition of SAYINGS (much like what one sees in Thomas). The next layer is LOCAL ORAL traditions around the sayings - LOCAL traditions which would add settings, plots and themes to the original SAYINGS. The settings, plots and themes would reflect the LOCAL audience and story tellers. The next layer in ancient historical literature is the layer of an oral tradition being put into writing.

 

We spoke earlier of the same methodology (source criticsm) being used to find the different sources for the pentatuch. You'll see this dynamic there as well. Two of the sources reflect different local oral traditions - one reflects the northern tribes, the other reflects the southern tribes - and then of course you have the Priestly tradition which is an entirely different audience and story teller.

 

This is the dynamic that makes sense for the exact same wording for the SAYINGS of Jesus between Matthew and Luke, but differences in regards to settings, plots, themes, arrangement. That type of thing. It makes total sense that Matthew and Luke were operating off of the same source for Jesus' words - writing to an audience in the choice of settings - plots - themes, etc...

 

Actually - in my mind (because I am a fan of oral tradition) what makes most sense is that Matthew and Luke were writing down local oral traditions which were built around the same SAYINGS of Jesus. But, there are huge numbers of scholars that would debate me on that - and so I won't defend it.

 

Anyway - the reason the Two Source (Q) hypothesis has the support of the majority of scholars - is just what I was writing about above. The Farrer hypothesis cannot answer the problem of how Matthew and Luke share the exact same wording in regards to the SAYINGS of Jesus - but disagree as to the setting and plot in which the SAYINGS are situated.

 

A few resources for you to look at - you can get information from both sides of the issue at this site:

http://www.earlychristianwritings.com/q.html

 

This site will take you to a parallel display of Q material in both Matthew and Luke - side-by-side. It is easier to see the similarities between the two when you can read them side-by-side. http://www.utoronto.ca/religion/synopsis/meta-q.htm

 

 

 

 

EDIT....

 

One last thing ... a bit off this specific issue - but worth mentioning. As has been discussed earlier - the apostles didn't actually write the stories themselves. As in Matthew didn't actually write the Gospel of Matthew. Often on this board - I see people use language to that suggests dishonesty in attributing authorship to someone other than oneself.

 

Actually - in my mind (because I am a fan of oral tradition) what makes most sense is that Matthew and Luke were writing down local oral traditions which were built around the same SAYINGS of Jesus. But, there are huge numbers of scholars that would debate me on that - and so I won't defend it.

 

But - as far as ancient oral history goes - this is not at all uncommon. Saying a story came from a particular person is nothing more than identifying a school of thought, a particular audience as followers of a particular person. In this situation - saying a Gospel came from Matthew is saying this oral tradition is from the followers of Matthew..

[Golden Meadows]

There are good arguments that suggest Jesus thought the end of days was imminent and therefore the codifying and integration of his revelation into the Jewish canon of holy books was irrelevant.

That his prophecy turned out to be incorrect was perhaps the single biggest factor in what resulted in the synoptic gospel mess.

 

Another major contributory factor I am currently chewing over links to practices of contemporary mystery religions. According to the gospels Jesus used the medium of parables, for example, to hide his message from those who were not initiates. All this would have been very familiar to a pagan audience. Even today we have no real idea of the liturgy at the heart of the great pagan mysteries that were practiced for nearly 2,000 years so tight was the secrecy surrounding them - they were never written down.

 

The point I am trying to suggest here is that one of the main reasons there is no gospels recorded in the immediate aftermath of Jesus's death is because the idea of written accounts of the xtian mysteries, e.g the meaning of baptism, the eucharist, was opposed to the ways of mystery religions. The actual writing down of the gospel was a shift of emphasis from conventional mystery religion methods back towards the religion of the book ways that was so familiar to the Jews and even fundamentalists today.

 

These two factors, i.e no need to define a NT canon when the end of days was at hand, and the mystery religions by definition do not write down their mysteries, led to the contradictory and error prone gospels generated when a change in strategy took place in the early church.

[Mythra]

Anyway - the reason the Two Source (Q) hypothesis has the support of the majority of scholars - is just what I was writing about above. The Farrer hypothesis cannot answer the problem of how Matthew and Luke share the exact same wording in regards to the SAYINGS of Jesus - but disagree as to the setting and plot in which the SAYINGS are situated.

 

That was explained very well, OM. I learned something I didn't quite understand today. Gracias, my dear.

[JeffXL]

Just my opinion - but - I think what happened here was that Jeff and I inadvertently hit each other's sore spots.

 

Biblical/Christian scholarship was my last hurrah with Christianity, and led me on an obsessive search for capital "T" Truth. I pored over so many tomes for so many hours-- even after I was no longer a Christian. It is indeed a huge sore spot. I was clinically (yes, diagnosed as such) and suicidally depressed.

 

This led to even more dead-end searches for the Truth. I regret in so many ways getting a degree in religion, wondering if I could have studied something that would have benefitted my fellow humans.

 

Semester after semester of Christian doctrine & history (taught at a state school-- it wasn't preaching in any way) that I found intoxicating. Hell, I loved studying all religions!

 

I did not come out of my depression until I figured out there is no God(s).

 

The scientist asks: How does this work?

The engineer asks: How can I make this work?

The religion major asks: Want fries with that?

 

I got my master's in library science, and I love what I'm doing now!