Musings on biblical studies, politics, religion, ethics, human nature, tidbits from science
Mostly straightforward but still some questions arise. Where does New Testament end and Church history and question of Christian origins, also certain roles of Marcion, begin? (Marcion’s argued influence on NT should be included here; also evidence of early readings found in Fathers like Tertullian.) Relevant manuscript discoveries and analysis belong here, including histories of their later copying.
Paul in 2 Corinthians informs readers that his escape from Damascus was an escape from the governor under King Aretas.
Luke in Acts informs readers that Paul’s escape from Damascus was an escape from Jews hiding in ambush at the city gates.
Pervo exposes the nonsense of Luke’s narrative and suggests why he chose to re-write 2 Corinthians the way he did. Continue reading “Paul’s basket escape from Damascus: the nonsense of the Acts narrative”
The Gospel of Mark contains a story about the call of Levi, a tax collector, to follow Jesus as one of his disciples, but then mystifies readers by not listing this person in the ranks of the famous Twelve. The reason this omission is so mystifying is that the call of Levi is described in a way that sounds every bit as if the reader is meant to see his calling on the same level of distinctiveness as the calling of the very leaders of the Twelve, Peter, James and John.
But to me the mystery is clarified when we interpret the two callings through the same frameworks we use to generally interpret Mark’s other double-up stories. Continue reading “The Call of Levi not to be one of the Twelve”
(updated 3:20 pm)
I’ve posted repeatedly reasons for believing the Gospel of Mark was an attack on that school of Christianity that claimed to trace its roots to the Twelve Apostles, and this post is a continuation of that theme although with a couple of new explorations into the interpretation of the gospel.
I’ve relied heavily in the past on the parable of the sower, following Tolbert’s Sowing the Gospel in this. But there is another prominent parable or maxim presented before this one and it is on that one, the sayings about the new cloth being sown into an old garment and new wine being poured into old wineskins, that is the fulcrum of my interpretation of Mark in the following snippet. Continue reading “The Twelve Apostles Among the Old Wineskins?”
(updated 6:50 am)
If Mark wanted to show that the Twelve were not reliable witnesses and that they collectively withered and died at the Passion of Jesus, he had a problem with Judas. (For background discussion to this see my earlier post.)
Judas (always labeled “one of the twelve” as if that association alone were enough to taint his reputation) worked well enough to stage a betrayal scene. But the betrayal also created a problem. Continue reading “Mark’s Judas problem: binding the kiss and the sword”
Ancient myths and the gospels are not modern novels but it’s tempting to ask questions about their characters and plots as if they were. Questions like, Why did such and such a person do this and not that? Are there not too many unlikely coincidences in this story to make it plausible? Ancient myths are not concerned with the psychological motivations and development of characters the way modern novels are. Nor do their parts have to hang together in the same unifying way.
Characters can be introduced without any explained motivation for their arrival or the actions they perform. What matters is the consequences they effect.
It is the same with reading the gospel of Mark. But before discussing that, a look at Mario Liverani’s chapter on the myth of Adapa (I know, Adapa is eons removed from the gospel, but the tools required for interpreting it are more applicable to the gospels than are the tools required for modern literary criticism): Continue reading “The wrong questions to ask about myths — and the gospels”
Judas was not much worse than the other disciples in the earliest gospel but by the time we read about him in Matthew, Luke and John he has become the arch villain. In the first gospel a case could be made that Judas was not singularly worse than the rest of the Twelve. Continue reading “Why Judas was singled out after Mark’s gospel”
It can be said that the author of Acts knew the story of Ananias and Sapphira as “a piece of floating tradition” and so added it to his novelistic history of the church. But we have no evidence for any such “floating tradition” — this is an assumption based on particular model or hypothesis about the origins of the canonical texts.
It can also be said that the author of Acts got the idea for the story from 1 Corinthians and shaped it to be like a similar story in Joshua. If there is textual evidence for a such a relationship between these accounts, then we have a more economical and preferable explanation for the origin of this story in Acts than the one that assumes a “floating tradition”.
The following is (again) from Pervo: Continue reading “Ananias and Sapphira: tradition or borrowing?”
Richard Pervo offers much to think about in his work Dating Acts: between the evangelists and the apologists. Justice is not done to Pervo’s arguments by summarizing any small section of them in dot-point form. The dot-point notes that I’ve already presented from this book —
— are intended to pique interest and thought only, not to present “the whole argument” by any means.
Summarizing here one more nugget in that book with occasional other comments. This one is headed Matters About Which Luke Is Silent but Not Ignorant (pp.133-135). . . .
Continue reading “4 things Luke knew — but did not say (or hardly said)”
A late date and anti-Marcionite context for Luke-Acts not only has the power to explain why Luke may have rejected Matthew’s story of the birth of Jesus, but even more directly why Luke’s genealogy of Jesus is so different from Matthew’s. (The common belief that Luke records Mary’s family line and Matthew Joseph’s is a simplistic rationalization that defies the textual evidence.)
Matthew’s genealogy of Jesus goes back to Abraham and is traced through Solomon. Luke’s bypasses Solomon and traces back to Adam and God himself. Continue reading “The Jesus Genealogies: their different theological significances”
There are arguments for and against Luke having known and used the gospel of Matthew, but one of the stronger arguments against him having done so is that his nativity story appears to owe nothing to Matthew’s – indeed appears to have been composed in complete ignorance of it. Matthew tells the story of the star, the visiting Magi, the infant Jesus being whisked off to Egypt to escape the Herod’s massacre of the infants, and eventual settlement in Nazareth. Luke’s story is as much about the miraculous birth of John the Baptist as it is about Jesus, involves shepherds instead of Magi, no Herodian massacre, and a presentation at the Jerusalem Temple rather than a flight to Egypt.
If Luke as we have it was, with the book of Acts, a response to Marcionism (or even an attempt to baptize Paul into orthodoxy quite apart from Marcionism), then it would seem he would have every reason to dismiss the Matthean nativity totally. Continue reading “A reason Luke might have rejected Matthew’s nativity story”
Luke 1:1-4
Many have undertaken to draw up an account of the things that have been fulfilled among us, just as they were handed down to us by those who from the first were eyewitnesses and servants of the word. Therefore, since I myself have carefully investigated everything from the beginning, it seemed good also to me to write an orderly account for you, most excellent Theophilus, so that you may know the certainty of the things you have been taught.
I am not an expert in biblical Greek. I rely on tools such as lexicons and grammars and dictionaries. But till then my use of those tools has led me to ask the following:
Is there anything in the prologue of Luke that discounts the possibility that he is speaking of written transmission exclusively?
The author begins by reminding readers that many before him have written a gospel-like narrative.
He then says that those who were there from the beginning, the eyewitnesses, “delivered the data” to us. That “delivered” work in Greek is the same as used elsewhere for Christ being delivered up for us, sinners being handed over to Satan, and Paul delivering the decrees from the Jerusalem council to his churches. It doesn’t seem to me to be related in any way at all to a method of delivery, but rather to a fact of delivery, method immaterial.
Is there anything in this prologue that denies the possibility, even plausibility, that the original eyewitnesses were believed to have passed on their understanding through a written narrative?
The Greek-English Lexicon of the NT ….. 4th ed of Bauers’s …. includes a meaning for the word for “delivered” the following:
3. of oral or written tradition hand down, pass on, transmit, . . . . (p.615)
That sounds to me like a prima facie argument for the eyewitnesses handing on the tradition whether orally or in written form….
Then the author of Luke’s Prologue says it seemed a good idea for him to do the same thing as had been done up to the point of his own experience. To add another link to the chain to give some confidence to his own readers that the past was still present.
The strongest argument against this question that comes to mind is later belief that the original eyewitnesses did not write their of their own experiences. (Except maybe for Matthew for some, and John for others. — but these are not majority views.)
But we cannot without good reason judge the intended meaning of the author of Luke’s prologue by how later generations interpreted it. What does the Prologue itself actually say and what are the plausible interpretations of what it says in its own right quite apart from later interpretations?
Is it reasonable to think that the author of the Prologue was speaking of a chain of written documents — which of course stretches even further the possible time gap between the original events and his own time?
The Jesus in Gethsemane story has always been one of the most moving episodes in religious movies. It is also a literary motif that has a long pedigree and would have been well known to any author who had learned to read and write Greek and who knew Jewish writings.
The basic structure and thematic units of the story are prominent in both “classical” Greek and Hebrew literature. It is quite likely one of those stories that may have fallen easily into place in an author’s mind without necessarily consciously imitating another — like a modern superhero drama can be unconsciously built on the motif of a Jesus-like saviour figure.
There are approx ten or more significant sequential parts that make up this motif: Continue reading “Odysseus, Moses and Jesus in Gethsemane”
Following are the different criteria lists used by three authors who have studied literary borrowings within the gospels and Acts: Allison, Clark and MacDonald.
Included are two extracts that discuss the ancient literary expectations and customs of authors borrowing from past masters.
Names and titles are hyperlinked: Continue reading “3 criteria lists for literary borrowing”
A Defense of Richard Bauckham’s Philosophy of Testimony, Part 2
In this series of posts I am addressing the criticisms levelled by Neil Godfrey at Richard Bauckham’s philosophy of testimony, as outlined in ch.18 of Jesus and the Eyewitnesses. Here I am responding to the observations found in this post: Continue reading “Bauckham: reply 2 to JD Walters”