To: Synoptic
In Response To: Kym Smith
From: Bruce

KYM: There were certainly 'contentions in the early churches' but that is
something quite different from contentions between the apostles.

BRUCE: There were both, and both are material for the present discussion.
The first is conceded. As to the second, the apostles whom Paul stigmatizes
as "false apostles" are still called by him "apostles," he just disagrees
with what they preach. They would doubtless have said the same or worse of
him. And as for the perspective from which we in our time might reject some
apostles (teachers of the Way) as false, why should we side with Paul
against Apollos? Except for childhood habituation, and that's not a reason.

KYM: Apart from Gal 2:11f, there is no record of conflict between the
apostles.

BRUCE: Gal 2:11f attests conflict between people Kym is willing to call
apostles. I should think that clinches it. And what of the Peter/Paul
conflict implied in 1 Cor 1:12?

KYM:  And why can't we believe that Peter would have taken Paul's rebuke and
been grateful for it?

BRUCE: Why can't we believe that Apollos would have taken the Pauline
reindoctrination and been grateful for it? In either case, churchmanly
behavior at the end does not cancel out the fact of ideological disagreement
at the beginning. And I do not accept Kym's treatment of "contentions in the
early churches" as though they were of no account. At stake here are things
like the Doctrine of the Resurrection. Basic and consequential. The large
point is that Christian doctrine, even about fundamental things like whether
Christ died for your sins, was diverse, and stridently so, in the earliest
times for which we have anything like evidence. Sometimes named apostles, or
named other figures, are associated with one or the other side of these
differences; sometimes not. Either way, the basic fact is the fact of
ideological disagreement. The early Church did not know what to make of
Jesus, or rather, it knew all too many things to make of Jesus.

KYM: Further, how does 2 Pet 3:15-18 figure in such a discussion without
resorting to it not being genuinely Petrine?

BRUCE: Tilt. Attempt to make prejudicial rules for the discussion. The
entire question is whether it is genuinely Petrine. And can anyone seriously
imagine that it is? Irenaeus quotes as "words of Peter" only 1Pt, he either
does not know, or does not accept, 2Pt. Jerome records doubts as of his
time. Internally, consider 2Pt 3:16, which knows Paul's letters *as a
collection,* a thing which cannot have existed until well after the death of
Paul, which in the usual chronology also means after the death of Peter. 2Pt
3:4 refers to the "fathers" as dead; Peter himself would have belonged to
that group.  I should have ranked 2Pt as a nice homework problem for a 4th
grade philology class, and now look at me, explaining it to grownups. The
new century is not opening very auspiciously.

Whoever wrote it, what does 2Pt say about our issue: the idea of divergent
ideology in the early Church? It says that there was a serious problem of
divergent ideology in the early Church. It follows Jude (in fact, it
swallows Jude whole, and please note that even Jude speaks of the apostolic
age in the past tense), and it is even more concerned about the kind of
thing about which Jude is concerned. Jude is perhaps a little obscure, but
it is clearly enough a polemic against divergent views within the
congregation(s) to which it is addressed.

Turn what NT stone one will, and chances are that a worm of contention will
crawl out. This is the larger point, to which the conjectural meekness of
any one false teacher under reproof is completely irrelevant.

KYM:  Hands up all those who see the gospel of repentance as allowing a
'merited forgiveness of sin'! Repentance itself is an admission that
forgiveness is not merited - especially as repentance is a gift, not a work
(e.g. Acts 11:18; 2 Tim 2:25).

BRUCE: Kym quotes Pauline materials, and post-Pauline ones at that, in
support of Pauline doctrine. It may be conceded that these materials support
Pauline doctrine. The question is, was there any other doctrine? Consider
John the Baptist. He preached a Gospel of Repentance, and be baptized the
repentant as a symbol of the washing away of their sins. John was not the
Christ, and he had no doctrine of Atonement, or of other mechanism of
forgiveness, to rely on, either at the time or prospectively. In John's
world, which is also the world in which Jesus began, what gets the sinner
forgiven is the sinner's repentance. This is very OT, but not for that less
likely as a doctrine of John. It is then relevant that Jesus follows in the
line of John, and is himself baptized by John, and is himself said at that
point in Mk to preach a gospel of repentance. The Markan story implies (if
you think about it, and Matthew evidently thought about it) that Jesus had
sins to forgive; Matthew's account of it answers this difficulty by making
the baptism pro forma merely; in Lk and Jn it is pushed further and further
offstage, and Jn, John the Baptist himself articulates the Doctrine of
Atonement, with Jesus right there in front of him, and thus still a long way
from the Cross. This last, at least to me, is unreal in the extreme. What
the Gospels together show is first a naive acknowledgement of the Baptism as
a fact, then an increasing discomfort with it as a rite with implications
for the purity of Jesus, and finally with a replacement of the theology of
forgiveness implied by John's baptism with a new theology of atonement. This
progression through the Gospels, always in the order Mk > Mt > Lk > Jn
(though Mt/Lk can be very close together on some issues) is what I have
called a Trajectory. The Baptism of Jesus is to me one of the clearest
Trajectories, and it clearly shows the evolution of theories of Jesus in the
period to which the Gospels collectively are witnesses.

KYM: That the doctrine of the Atonement is largely missing in any of the
Gospels is understandable. Jesus' teaching could hardly deal with what even
the disciples could/would not hear until after he had accomplished that
atonement.

BRUCE: Exactly. But I ask, with von Soden and others: What exactly was Jesus
preaching in the meantime, in synagogues up and down Galilee; what doctrine
struck the Capernahumites as both new and authoritative? He must have been
SAYING something in advance of establishing himself as a dead, and thus a
risen, person. What does Kym think that was? With what teachings did he
temporize in those years, with what doctrinal place-holders did he hold the
thousands spellbound for days? It's a real question, and I would appreciate
an answer from anyone who has one to give.

KYM: My view, as you know, is that there is an insignificant time-gap
between the gospels.

BRUCE: I know it; few better. And I reject it. The Gospels show, not signs
of simultaneity, but signs of linear growth, the kind of growth that takes
years rather than weeks to happen. In an earlier age, faith was troubled by
the evidence in the rocks, and in the fossils that they contained, that
geological and biological processes of fantastic duration had taken place
long before the present age. Yet Scripture (as interpreted in orthodox
circles) held that the Earth had been created only 6,000 years ago, and the
evidence of geology must thus be some sort of  misleading anomaly. Was it
Kingsley, who said at that time that he could not believe that "God has
written on the rocks one enormous and superfluous lie?" Well, I stand with
Kingsley. I cannot believe that men have contrived to write, in the folded
and fissured and fossilized record of the Gospels, an intentional simulacrum
of something that did not actually take place, namely, a slow development of
Jesus theory and indeed of congregational practice, over many decades.

KYM: By the end of the first century and start of the second, there was a
very strong view of apostolic succession (e.g. Ignatius). They had no doubt
that the apostles had appointed successors.

BRUCE: That would be, what, about three human generations and two
transmission generations after Jesus. There is every reason to suppose that,
by that time, the question of who in that time spoke with anything like
apostolic authority would have come up, and a succession mechanism (perhaps
even a transmission mechanism, or two or three) would have been excogitated.
But this, though likely enough for the period of which it is asserted, is
not evidence for any earlier period.

On my suggestion of an accretional Mk, we next had:

KYM: I am not qualified to assess 'interpolations [and] accretions.' Are
there sufficient variations in the text of the ancient copies of Mark to
indicate this (apart from its ending/s)?

BRUCE: That is not the question. The question is whether the archetype, the
text which stands behind extant manuscripts, the first public text, had
itself undergone a prior period of growth before being handed over to the
copyists to multiply. Kym has earlier asserted that gMk was distributed
immediately on being written. In that case, there would be no time during
which authorial reconsiderations or house church updates could have
occurred. If so, then the archetype (first distributed text) is indeed
identical with the author's original (final authorial text), as text critics
are in the habit of assuming in all cases. But there are many
counterexamples. Horace's Carmina IV are distinct from Carmina I-III in many
ways, including literary sophistication and a special way with the Sapphic
meter; in addition, they come after what is clearly an overridden original
ending in the last poem Carmina III. Are Carmina IV then extrinsic to the
Carmina of Horace, as John 21 is extrinsic to John 1-20? That is a matter of
literary judgement. The facts as otherwise known are that Carmina I-III were
published, as Horace's intentional farewell to poetry, in 23, and that
Augustus induced him to resume writing poetry, the additional material being
added to the previous core and published as a set in 13. Then, yes, Carmina
IV are distinct, and distinct precisely in a way that implies a more mature
poet (sometimes also a more bored poet; you have to pick from Carmina IV
with some care). They are an extension of the previous text which
nevertheless lies wholly within the lifetime of the author, and were
produced by his own hand.

That is the model. It is common all over Eurasia at this period. There may
well be examples in the NT as well. I have mentioned a couple already, in
passing. This is why the "no manuscript evidence" argument fails. It fails
because what is being asserted in these cases is not scribal corruption, but
authorial or proprietarial growth and augmentation, prior to the onset
general copying process.

KYM: The view of many commentators that Mk was written for a suffering
Church may not prove my scenario but it does support it. 1 and 2 Pet seem to
view the end as nigh which is interesting if, again as a number of
commentators consider, 2 Pet 1:15 refers to the Gospel of Mark.

BRUCE: Are we equating "suffering" and "scared?" I would caution against
doing so. As for the end being nigh, people turn up on my doorstep every few
months to share that conviction with me. The presence or persistence of that
conviction can therefore have little direct bearing on how far removed from
Jesus a given NT writing was. What DOES have more bearing is whether a given
NT writing betrays uncertainty about the delay of the End Days. As for
evidence that Mark has the feel of a document written under conditions, and
with intentions, that Kym has previously attributed to it, I ask for
passages and he gives me commentators. This whole theory is disturbingly
removed from the actual words of actual texts.

KYM: The divergences in Mt and Lk are explained by their adaptation of
material for their respective readerships and that they wrote in isolation
from each other. The differences also indicate that the early church was
more interested in presenting gospels which evoked faith rather than
attempted to prove Jesus was the Christ by conformity of details.

BRUCE: Let's go back a bit. There were Matthew and Luke, together at the
conjectured Council, with a previously winnowed and authentic body of
eyewitness material in front of them. Why, in the name of all that is
institutionally puissant, were they allowed to separate, each to his home
and constituency, and proceed independently? Did they at least take with
them some of the previously winnowed common material? We may answer that by
asking: Is the genealogy of Luke a Gentile adaptation of the genealogy of
Matthew? Not conceivably. It is a new item, founded de novo; it is neither a
failed scribal copy of Matthew nor a Gentile-adjusted copy of Matthew (for
that transDavidic purpose, the easiest thing would have been to simply add
more stuff onto the beginning of the Matthean genealogy). In short, Kym has
Mt and Lk behaving, after the Council, as though no Council with its vetted
eyewitness files available to all comers had ever existed. Each Evangelist
is somehow on his own, improvising as he may find suitable. The behavior of
Mt and Lk is the same, either on Kym's view of a Council, or on my view of
no Council. Then the theory of the Council is "doing no work" in the
explanatory system, and should be given up as a matter of theoretical
parsimony and tidiness. I accept the implication that the Council, in fact,
never existed. And I recommend it to Kym as well.

Or failing that: If there are passages in Mt/Lk which directly support Kym's
view, and do no equally support my view, what are they? Where, in those
texts as we have them, are there signs or leavings of the process that Kym
persists in supposing>

Bruce

To: Synoptic
On: Ascription
From: Bruce

Speaking of 2Pt, easily the least enthusiastically included of the
eventually canonical NT writings, the situation seems to be that it was
accepted over lingering doubts of its authenticity by learned persons,
chiefly on the strength of its being already widely read in churches. And
that popularity in turn seems to have owed much to its ascription to Peter,
easily the most authoritative individual among the Authoritative Twelve.

People seem to have trouble with the unkind word "forgery," and they are not
very comfortable with "pseudepigraph" either, though the latter is a
perfectly adequate name for what, on the evidence, seems to be going on with
2Pt.

So I have a suggestion, in the direction of niceness and good feeling. Why
cannot a work whose canonical status rests chiefly on its ascription be
called an "ascripture?" There is even a nice adjective, "ascriptural."

What do you folks think? Will it play in Peoria?

Bruce

--- In Synoptic@yahoogroups.com, "E Bruce Brooks" <brooks@...> wrote:
>
> To: Synoptic
> On: Ascription
> From: Bruce
>
> Speaking of 2Pt, easily the least enthusiastically included of the
> eventually canonical NT writings, the situation seems to be that
it was
> accepted over lingering doubts of its authenticity by learned
persons,
> chiefly on the strength of its being already widely read in
churches. And
> that popularity in turn seems to have owed much to its ascription
to Peter,
> easily the most authoritative individual among the Authoritative
Twelve.
>
> People seem to have trouble with the unkind word "forgery," and
they are not
> very comfortable with "pseudepigraph" either, though the latter is
a
> perfectly adequate name for what, on the evidence, seems to be
going on with
> 2Pt.
>
> So I have a suggestion, in the direction of niceness and good
feeling. Why
> cannot a work whose canonical status rests chiefly on its
ascription be
> called an "ascripture?" There is even a nice
adjective, "ascriptural."
>
> What do you folks think? Will it play in Peoria?
>
> Bruce
>

I liked your suggestion on first reading, but then a second
interpretation came to mind. 'Ascripture' could be read/interpreted
to mean "a-scripture" or "free of scripture" as in a-septic.

Unfortunately, it would not work here in Corpus Christi.

Lance Beard

Lance,

That was more or less the whole idea. An ascriptive text is not an authorial
text, and lacks whatever authority the claimed authorship would have
conferred upon it. But isn't "ascripture" a rather compact and elegant way
of making that point?

Bruce

To: Synoptic
Especially: Lance
On: Ascripture
From: Bruce

LANCE: I am saying that to call 2 Peter 'ascripture' would be interpreted to
mean it is "free or without" scripture = without ANY authority. Or is that
what you are saying?

BRUCE: It is indeed. An ascripture is a nonscripture; it does not have the
authority of the person to whom it is ascribed, and by definition it claims
no other. We can't call 2Pt noncanonical; it is in the canon. But we can
call it ascriptural, which is to say, whatever its status with the Bible
publishing industry, it lacks authority as scripture. It is not the Word of
Peter. It is the word of, well, we don't know who. And it is *important*
that we don't know who. In art, it would be labeled as "School of Peter."

It may be inspiring; so is Barnabas, so is the Shepherd of Hermas. People
are free to be inspired by it. I wouldn't trouble them for the world. I give
them my blessing. But scholars should also be free of having to tussle
endlessly with the Petrine ascription. In NT terms, 2Pt is more precisely
"School of James," having in mind the evident sequence James > Jude > 2
Peter. I think those few who care about such things should be able to
proceed on that basis, if that is indeed where careful scholarship brings us
out.

And so far as I can see, it is. Updates always welcome.

Bruce

E Bruce Brooks
Warring States Project
University of Massachusetts at Amherst

--- In Synoptic@yahoogroups.com, "E Bruce Brooks" <brooks@...> wrote:
>
> To: Synoptic
> On: Ascripture
> From: Bruce
>

I had the same question as Lance as to whether asripture was a
composite noun from a + scripture or a derived noun along the lines
of ascribe => ascripture. It seems that Bruce's answer was that it is
both. I am not certain that it can be both, rather I think it has to
be one or the other - because they essentially mean two different
things. Am I wrong?

Another question, though, is why not name the category along the
lines of authorship rather than manuscript? Etymologically, scripture
means "something written." It is only within its semenatic range that
ideas of authority are included. A "without authority" interpretation
of ascriptural implies a universal acceptance of the nature of the
authority implied by the word scripture, which certainly isn't the
case.

Authority (of scripture) really isn't tied to authorship that
strongly anyway (Hebrews, for example). Clearly 2 Peter is scripture
in the sense that it is written down and that it is in the cannon,
but it is authoritative (I think, in a universal sense) only in so
far as it is true to life and the nature of reality. How one decides
to classify and organize those degrees of continuity with the truth
as he or she sees it, is a worth while exercise - but the
term "ascripture" seems to obfuscate its intended aim.

Adam Crumpton

To: Synoptic
On: Ascripture
From: Bruce

ascripture < ascribe; ascription [a text claiming authority on the basis of
its ascription to a given author, but in fact not by that author; infl and
reinf by "scripture," a text regarded as authoritative by a particular
group; eg, the Buddhist Scriptures have doctrinal authority for Buddhists,
whence the folk etymology a + scriptural = nonscriptural, not properly
possessing scriptural authority]; pseudepigraph. Example of usage: "Many
regard 2 Peter as having scriptural authority, but a majority of scholars
find that the attribution to Peter is untenable, and that the text should
accordingly be classed as an ascripture."

Tell your local dictionary editor;  I am offering 10% [of gross receipts] as
finder's fee.

Bruce

E Bruce Brooks
Warring States Project
University of Massachusetts at Amherst

To: Synoptic
On: School of James
From: Bruce

Seriously (for a moment), the sense I get from what seems to me to be the
most judicious scholarly opinion is that we have two time series:

School of James
     James > Jude > 2 Peter
School of Peter
     1 Peter > 2 Peter [plus Gospel of Peter somewhere in the offing]

That is, what we seem to have here is a sort of convergence of two real or
claimed apostolic traditions. Sorting out and filling in these relationships
is probably going to be useful in giving context for certain points that
arise in connection with the Synoptic Problem; that is, it is going to be
material for solving the Synoptic Problem. But I take it as obvious that
such an investigation would be out of bounds for the "Synoptic" list as
presently defined.

I thus intend this as my last post on the subject, before taking the subject
elsewhere. If anyone is interested in continuing the topic, I invite them to
write me privately. Thanks for everyone's forbearance to this point, and
best wishes for what, in the US at any rate, is about to be a holiday
weekend.

Bruce

E Bruce Brooks
Warring States Project
University of Massachusetts at Amherst

Can one have any confidence, historically, in the "authority" of any of the
Christian canon (or for that matter, the Tanakh), inasmuch as the books being
written by a particular person? Isn't this a theological claim, based loosely on
Eusebius and his literary references, many which are no longer with us?

In order to see "The Epistle of James" as written by "James," isn't this a far
leap from the synoptics? Doesn't one have to piece together a snippet or two in
Galatians, pair that with Acts, and create a "theological viewpoint" for someone
known as James? Even if one views Acts and Galatians as historically accurate (I
don't), this seems to be a stretch. It does, however, seem that some of the
points in Galatians are countered by points in James. When I saw "James" as a
historical being who wrote the epistle, it almost seemed like it was a response
to Galatians.

I guess I wonder if that is history or theology.

Dennis Dean Carpenter
Dahlonega, Ga. USA

A question: When I tried to comment, "reply" gave me the name of the person to
whom I was attempting to respond, not Synoptic. Why?

[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

To: Synoptic
Cc: WSW; Al Cohen
On: Ascripture Etc
From: Bruce

I have received a private communication to the following effect:

"I have enjoyed your suggestion on ascripture, and your advocacy of the term
in response to objections. I don't take it fully seriously, and assume, too,
that it was intended more to provoke and amuse than to alter the face of New
Testament scholarly usage."

Well, now that the subject comes up in its fullness, it is just barely
possible that New Testament usage could do with a bit of alteration. An
armhole here, a cuff there, to let the subject move more comfortably in its
chosen direction. As I once remarked in a different venue, NT people have
names for everything, most of them misleading. But a major reform is
probably not practicable during what for many is a holiday weekend, and I
will not propose one at this time.

[Except that the sooner people start capitalizing Biblical, the better.
Biblical is to Bible as Chinese is to China. Do you folks want to get the
nuclear nations down on you? There is such a thing as enough
Frenchification, in typography as elsewhere. Too many calories; too few
capitals: thin in the wrong places].

My correspondent went on to ask:

"P.S. What is the Warring States Project?"

The 2,250-page answer to that is contained on the web site which I used to
append to my signature, and which I repeat again below. The single-sentence
answer is that the Warring States Project is a research institute, situated
at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst, which intends to revive the
use of the philological toolkit that was once standard in the humanities,
extend it theoretically (we recently discovered that I cannot with propriety
avoid calling my extension of the Tischendorf Principle, formerly Metzger
Principle, by any other name than the Brooks Principle) so as to deal with
growth texts, which are common in antiquity but are not regularly recognized
by the standard methods for studying antiquity, and then to demonstrate the
power and generality of that toolkit by applying it not only to our home
problem, the classical Chinese text corpus as a whole (including more than
one text which by itself is as large as the entire NT canon), where an
incipient revolution has been hanging fire for many centuries, but also to
selected problems in the cognate and indeed senior fields of Biblical and
Classical Greek (the little excursions into Neotestamentica with which I now
and then venture to trouble this august List are part of the latter agenda).

Hope that helps. If more should be required, a live demo, on the subject of
Proto-Luke, will be available at SBL/San Diego this November. Day and hour
TBA.

Bruce

E Bruce Brooks
Research Professor of Chinese
Warring States Project
University of Massachusetts at Amherst
http://www.umass.edu/wsp

To: Synoptic
In Response To: Dennis Dean Carpenter
On: 2Pt Etc [nominal heading: ascripture]
From: Bruce

DENNIS: Can one have any confidence, historically, in the "authority" of any
of the Christian canon (or for that matter, the Tanakh), inasmuch as the
books being written by a particular person? Isn't this a theological claim,
based loosely on Eusebius and his literary references, many which are no
longer with us?

BRUCE: For myself, I don't so much care about "us," the question is what the
people at time thought. And at least some of them, at the time and long
before Eusebius, seem to have thought that putting a doctrine or a doctrinal
comment under the name of a recognized Apostle was more effective, for
achieving the intended purpose, than signing it Sine Nomine, Cappadocia.
There are modern parallels, if one needs modern parallels. Thus, after the
deaths of Erle Stanley Gardner and Rex Stout, mysteries involving the same
lead characters continued to issue from the respective presses, not as
commanding belief, but (the basic equivalent) as exploiting an established
market share. A known name is better than an unknown name, even when (as in
those cases) the known name is recognized as fictive. Those applying to
graduate school, please take note.

Hence the ascripture.

Doctrinal authority was a burning issue at the time, and also for many
today. What historical value these same texts have, in recovering the early
history of the Church, is a separate matter. In brief: *all* texts have
value for history, the problem is to place them at the *right point* in
history, so that they testify to the time when they were written, rather
than confusing us about the time which they instead purport to describe. In
2Pt, the issue was a tendency to abandon the doctrine of the Second Coming.
2Pt, on present understanding, cannot be taken as evidence that this
occurred during the lifetime of Peter. On the contrary, it attests that
problem at a considerably later date, after the first generation of Apostles
had passed from the scene (the previous Epistle of Jude also is written from
that temporal perspective, albeit claiming to come from within Apostolic
times).

DENNIS: I guess I wonder if that is history or theology.

BRUCE: It's history, but with inevitable consequences for theology. In the
consequences lies the rub. At bottom (as was determined from the other side,
in the encyclical Pascendi Dominici Gregis of 1907), history and theology
don't mix. The view from within theology is that theology is constant;
specifically, it is what Thomas Aquinas said it was. History, by which I
mean the historian, sees it as changing. Biblical scholars speak of
"bracketing off" their theological commitment when functioning as
historians. It must be somewhat difficult to do this successfully and
consistently. Pascendi Dominici Gregis puts it in the correct terms: more
than the shepherd, it's the interest of the flock that is paramount. A given
Biblical scholar may reject the ascription of 2Pt to Pt, and remain
personally comfortable with the rest of the belief and ascription nexus; he
manages to keep his personal equilibrium. But when he puts on his Sunday hat
and addresses his flock, what then? Will 2Pt be citable in that context, as
[to paraphrase one mid-20c commentary] The Word of God? And if not, what is
the effect on the flock of his refusing to so regard it? The whole thing is
radically untenable. Whence the encyclical, and one readily enough sees
where it was coming from.

DENNIS: A question: When I tried to comment, "reply" gave me the name of the
person to whom I was attempting to respond, not Synoptic. Why?

BRUCE: It's the way the list is set up at Yahoo. Most lists operate the
other way. But to reply to Synoptic in responding to a Synoptic message, use
instead Reply All. Messes me up all the time; I should keep a note on my
desk. Problem is finding room on my desk for another note.

Bruce

E Bruce Brooks
Warring States Project
University of Massachusetts at Amherst
http://www.umass.edu/wsp

Thanks for the tip on reply to the group, Bruce.

I like your modern parallels. I would, however, choose The Stratemeyer
Syndicate as a relatively modern parallel. In those many books published
(Hardy Boys, Nancy Drew, Bobbsey Twins, Tom Swift and others), none were
actually penned, as far as I know, by the author named, but to this day
children are fans of "Dixon," "Hope," "Keene," etc.

I think one of the issues in scholarship today is when "at the time" was.
Were Luke and Acts written after the Apostolic Age, leading into the
Apologetic Age, as some have proposed? Was Acts written, to a large part, to
counteract Marcion and to "clean up" Paul for the orthodoxy (or
proto-orthodoxy)? Can not the uncontested Paulines be contested as being
later than assumed? I would submit that "at the time" has quite a bit to do
with the synoptic problem, which seems to become less and less a problem
when the distance between the writing of Matthew and Luke is widened.

(I realize you were talking about 2nd Peter, so I'll leave it there.)

Dennis

Dennis Dean Carpenter
Dahlonega, Ga.

Bruce,

I would like to have completed my response to your former post but I had better
keep up with your current rather than have you running too far ahead. Perhaps we
will return to the other.


<<<BRUCE: . the apostles whom Paul stigmatizes as "false apostles" are still
called by him "apostles," he just disagrees with what they preach. They would
doubtless have said the same or worse of him. And as for the perspective from
which we in our time might reject some apostles (teachers of the Way) as false,
why should we side with Paul against Apollos?  . Gal 2:11f attests conflict
between people Kym is willing to call apostles. I should think that clinches it.
And what of the Peter/Paul conflict implied in 1 Cor 1:12?>>>

No, they may have been self-proclaimed apostles, but they were NOT apostles that
the Church should have recognized. If you are going to allow that the
PSEUDAPOSTOLOI (2 Cor 11:13) were only different from the twelve in degrees,
will you also allow that the only difference between the PSEUDOCHRISTOI of Mk
13:22 and Christ is one of degrees?

And there is no siding between Paul and Apollos, it was not with Apollos or
Cephas/Peter that Paul had difficulties but with the Corinthians who wrongly
preferred one over the other (1 Cor 3:4-9,22).


<<<BRUCE: Why can't we believe that Apollos would have taken the Pauline
reindoctrination and been grateful for it?>>>

Obviosly he did, he was encouraged and given a letter of recommendation by the
Pauline camp (Acts 18:27) and he became a co-worker with Paul (1 Cor 4:6;
16:12).



<<< And I do not accept Kym's treatment of "contentions in the early churches"
as though they were of no account. At stake here are things like the Doctrine of
the Resurrection. Basic and consequential. The large point is that Christian
doctrine, even about fundamental things like whether Christ died for your sins,
was diverse, and stridently so, in the earliest times for which we have anything
like evidence. Sometimes named apostles, or named other figures, are associated
with one or the other side of these differences; sometimes not. Either way, the
basic fact is the fact of ideological disagreement.>>>

No difference was of no account, but contentions between true and false apostles
is one thing, 'ideological disagreements' between true apostles would have
destroyed the Church.



<<<BRUCE: Kym quotes Pauline materials, and post-Pauline ones at that, in
support of Pauline doctrine. It may be conceded that these materials support
Pauline doctrine. The question is, was there any other doctrine? Consider John
the Baptist. He preached a Gospel of Repentance, and be baptized the repentant
as a symbol of the washing away of their sins. John was not the Christ, and he
had no doctrine of Atonement, or of other mechanism of forgiveness, to rely on,
either at the time or prospectively.>>>

Oh? "Behold the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world."



<<<In John's world, which is also the world in which Jesus began, what gets the
sinner forgiven is the sinner's repentance. This is very OT, but not for that
less likely as a doctrine of John. It is then relevant that Jesus follows in the
line of John, and is himself baptized by John, and is himself said at that point
in Mk to preach a gospel of repentance. The Markan story implies (if you think
about it, and Matthew evidently thought about it) that Jesus had sins to
forgive; Matthew's account of it answers this difficulty by making the baptism
pro forma merely; in Lk and Jn it is pushed further and further offstage, and
Jn, John the Baptist himself articulates the Doctrine of Atonement, with Jesus
right there in front of him, and thus still a long way from the Cross. This
last, at least to me, is unreal in the extreme. What the Gospels together show
is first a naive acknowledgement of the Baptism as a fact, then an increasing
discomfort with it as a rite with implications for the purity of Jesus, and
finally with a replacement of the theology of forgiveness implied by John's
baptism with a new theology of atonement. This progression through the Gospels,
always in the order Mk > Mt > Lk > Jn (though Mt/Lk can be very close together
on some issues) is what I have called a Trajectory. The Baptism of Jesus is to
me one of the clearest Trajectories, and it clearly shows the evolution of
theories of Jesus in the period to which the Gospels collectively are
witnesses.>>>

This development, if you are right about the sequence and timing of the gospels,
takes Jesus from a sinner to a Saviour. So what kind of Jesus do you believe in?
The former can do nothing for anyone else's sin, the latter would appear to be a
fabrication to improve on earlier, inadequate ideas. Neither, then, could do us
any good!

<<<BRUCE: .But I ask, with von Soden and others: What exactly was Jesus
preaching in the meantime, in synagogues up and down Galilee; what doctrine
struck the Capernahumites as both new and authoritative? He must have been
SAYING something in advance of establishing himself as a dead, and thus a risen,
person. What does Kym think that was? With what teachings did he temporize in
those years, with what doctrinal place-holders did he hold the thousands
spellbound for days? It's a real question, and I would appreciate an answer from
anyone who has one to give. >>>

In one sense, it did not matter what he was preaching. The people held him, as
they did John the Baptist, to be a prophet. Add to that the miracles he
performed and it is no wonder the people flocked to him. What we are told,
whatever the actual content of his teaching was, that Jesus:

'.went about all Galilee, teaching in their synagogues and preaching the gospel
of the kingdom and healing every disease and every infirmity among the people'
(Mt 4:23).

What he did teach was primarily for his disciples and veiled from others (e.g.
Matt 13:10-17). Even what he opened up for the disciples was often not
understood (e.g. Mt 16:2123; Mk 6:52; 9:9-10, 32; Lk 9:45). Jn, of course, holds
much of his 'plain' teaching which, for its directness, put him in conflict with
those who were threatened by it and him. Besides healing the sick, we know that
he did encourage the people in forgiveness (Mt 9:2) and righteous living (Mt
5-7). Those who were just on for the ride were, no doubt, tantalized by his
parables or amused  and often self-seeking with the signs he performed (Mt 8:16;
Mk 6:53-56; Jn 6:26). The main issue continues to be that Jesus could not teach
plainly about the Atonement, for example, until he had actually made atonement.
A major part of what he spoke about after his resurrection - which formed the
basis of the apostles' doctrine - must have included this matter (e.g. Lk
24:26,32,44-45; Acts 1:3) .


<<<KYM: My view, as you know, is that there is an insignificant time-gap between
the gospels.
BRUCE: I know it; few better. And I reject it. The Gospels show, not signs of
simultaneity, but signs of linear growth, the kind of growth that takes years
rather than weeks to happen. In an earlier age, faith was troubled by the
evidence in the rocks, and in the fossils that they contained, that geological
and biological processes of fantastic duration had taken place long before the
present age. Yet Scripture (as interpreted in orthodox circles) held that the
Earth had been created only 6,000 years ago, and the evidence of geology must
thus be some sort of misleading anomaly. Was it Kingsley, who said at that time
that he could not believe that "God has written on the rocks one enormous and
superfluous lie?" Well, I stand with Kingsley. I cannot believe that men have
contrived to write, in the folded and fissured and fossilized record of the
Gospels, an intentional simulacrum of something that did not actually take
place, namely, a slow development of Jesus theory and indeed of congregational
practice, over many decades.>>>

Firstly, I hope that your mention of some peoples understanding of the 'youth'
of the earth is not to imply that that is my view. It is not - though I think
God would be capable of doing so if he so pleased. The issue at stake, however,
the time-lapse between the Gospels, is not affected in anyway by one's view of
creation. The layering of the rock strata has nothing to do with the layering of
the Gospels. Even so, if  we are capable of imposing a preconceived
understanding on the rock strata which can be clearly observed, we are even more
capable of imposing a theory of stratification on the various, ambiguous and at
times enigmatic literary forms of the gospel. Our motives in such things are
often less than pure!

Well Bruce, that's it! I concede defeat. Not defeat in what may be true about
the gospels but defeat as far as being able to keep up with you on the list. I
hoped to be able to chip away at some essential points but your output has
overwhelmed me. I've been thinking today as I have tried to find the time to
give to your posts and it seems to me I have other priorities which will
neglected if I try to keep up the level correspondence your posts demand. Sad,
because I asked for some interaction, got it, and now I'm bailing out.
Succinctness - both in length of posts and subject (i.e. the Synoptic Problem)
may have allowed a longer and more fruitful discussion. The time I am giving to
reading and responding, however, is too much given my primary, pastoral
responsibilities in a parish and a hospital. I suspect some interesting issues
have been uncovered on both sides - perhaps some unexpected ones.



Sincerely,



Kym Smith

St Luke's Anglican Church

Adelaide

South Australia

khs@...








[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

To: Synoptic
In Response and Farewell to: Kym Smith
On: Johannine Solution
From: Bruce

I think I have said enough by now to indicate why I did not care to respond
at the time to Kym's earlier posting on his Johannine Solution. From my
merely personal point of view, the present discussion has reached the point
of reiteration. Just one more comment by way of farewell, and then I have
done.

KYM: No difference was of no account, but contentions between true and false
apostles is one thing, 'ideological disagreements' between true apostles
would have destroyed the Church.

BRUCE: I suspect that in fact they *did* destroy the Church, perhaps more
than once. I think, for example, that the thing that Acts represents in its
history of the Church as original, primitive Christianity, the thing
presided over by James the Lord's Brother, to the extent that it ever
existed otherwise than as a conflation of two different lines of Church
development, is not only different from, but discontinuous with, the Church
we now have. The large scenario of Acts itself, as I read it, makes that
very point, and emphasizes that very discontinuity. What began as a Jesus
movement among Jews, and within Judaism, ended up as a Gentile Christianity
which was rejected by Jews, and which itself rejected all Jewish elements,
save those which were transformed symbolically into the possession, indeed
the heritage, of Gentile Christianity alone.

But now I think I should relinquish my place at the table to any one, or to
any six, who would like to engage some of the points Kym raises (whether or
not Kym himself is available to respond), but may have hesitated to do so
while it seemed that Kym and I were having a private conversation. The
conversation, or at any rate the topic, is now open.

Bruce

E Bruce Brooks
Warring States Project
University of Massachusetts at Amherst
http://www.umass.edu/wsp

To: Synoptic
In Response To: Mark Matson
On: Ascripture
From: Bruce

A pleasure to see Mark Matson's name once again, among those posting to
Synoptic. May that pleasure be soon repeated. But:

MARK: I venture into this discussion being aware that it probably is outside
the proper focus of the Synoptic-L list.  That is, this discussion is
primarily theological in nature.

BRUCE: And I venture out of the discussion for the same reason, with any
necessary retrospective apologies to List proprietors and members for
possible infringement of List protocol.

My own view is that the Synoptic Problem, like virtually any other problem
in NT, down to and including that of 2Pt, cannot be solved without reference
to the positions advocated by the several Gospels and other texts; that is,
without reference to theology. But it is neither my place nor my purpose to
dispute the wisdom of List protocol, and I accordingly make an end of my end
of this thread. Let others do as they like about the other end.

Just be sure I get my 10%. Certified check will be fine.

Bruce

E Bruce Brooks
Warring States Project
University of Massachusetts at Amherst
http://www.umass.edu/wsp

To: Synoptic
On: Son of Man
From: Bruce

The T & T Clark catalog, besides offering possibilities of purchasing $130
books for $20, also lists some intriguing new titles. Among them (for me at
least) is Maurice Casey, The Solution of the 'Son of Man' Problem. The
stated release date is May 2007, so it ought to be out, but no library
accessible to me seems to have a copy. Has anyone on the list seen it? If
so, could they summarize Casey's position in a few well-chosen words? On or
off list, as may best suit the taste and convenience of the supplier.

Thanks,

E Bruce Brooks
Warring States Project
University of Massachusetts at Amherst

In rereading parts of the introduction to Fleddermann's "Q: A Reconstruction
and Commentary", I'm reminded of the oddity of a basic assumption made (but
rarely acknowledged) by both 2ST and Farrer supporters, namely that the
Double Tradition had a single source.

Suppose Mark was not extant, and we tried to reconstruct the source behind
Matthew and Luke. What would we end up with? Well the "Double Tradition" in
this scenario would consist primarily of parts of Mark, and secondarily of
the material usually designated as "Q". In other words the "Double
Tradition" would have had more than one source (assuming, as most believe,
that there never was a document equivalent to 'Mark+Q').

Surely therefore every synoptic investigator should take seriously the
possibility (arguably the likelihood), according to this highly relevant
analogy, that the DT also had more than one source.

Ron Price

Derbyshire, UK

Web site: http://homepage.virgin.net/ron.price/index.htm

--- Ron Price <ron.price@...> wrote:

> In rereading parts of the introduction to
> Fleddermann's "Q: A Reconstruction
> and Commentary", I'm reminded of the oddity of a
> basic assumption made (but
> rarely acknowledged) by both 2ST and Farrer
> supporters, namely that the
> Double Tradition had a single source.
>
> Suppose Mark was not extant, and we tried to
> reconstruct the source behind
> Matthew and Luke. What would we end up with? Well
> the "Double Tradition" in
> this scenario would consist primarily of parts of
> Mark,
[snip]

By definition QED the DT is material common to MT & LK
not found in MK. So parts of Mark . . . is contrary to
the definition.

John

John N. Lupia, III
Beachwood,  New Jersey 08722 USA; Beirut, Lebanon
Fax: (732) 349-3910
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Roman-Catholic-News/
God Bless Everyone


      
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John and Mark,

Thanks for your replies, but you both appear to have missed my point.

Mark Matson wrote:

> have you seen the article by Eric Eve, entitled "Reconstructing Mark: A
> Thought Experiment" in Questioning Q. ?

Yes.

> He essentially does this for Mark.

Eric does something different, for he posits a scenario in which Q is extant
as well as Matthew and Luke. I am positing that only Matthew and Luke are
extant.

- - - - - - -

John Lupia wrote:

> By definition QED the DT is material common to MT & LK
> not found in MK. So parts of Mark . . . is contrary to
> the definition.

My "Double Tradition" (note the quote marks) was referring to the posited
scenario in which, in the absence of an extant Mark, we tried to reconstruct
the source(s) of Matthew and Luke. It would include the majority of what we
now know as Mark because what we know as Triple Tradition would become
"Double Tradition" in the absence of Mark.

- - - - - - -

Thus the "Double Tradition" in  my scenario would consist of the Double
Tradition as we know it plus the Triple Tradition as we know it, and these
would be inextricably mixed together. We (Farrer, 2ST and 3ST advocates
alike) know that this "Double Tradition" has more than one source (Mark plus
at least one other).
So surely scholars should acknowledge the possibility (and arguably on the
basis of the posited scenario, the probability) that our Double Tradition
has more than one source?!


Ron Price

Derbyshire, UK

Web site: http://homepage.virgin.net/ron.price/index.htm

Dear Ron:

I have to commend you for >at least trying< to
contemplate a world without the Gospel of Mark in
which Matthew and Luke composed their canonical
Gospels. Many do this at varying degrees of success.
Having been convinced of Markan priority in my youth
and setting out to write huge tomes based on that
principle I think I began to attain objectivity on
this around 1993. So what I have said and what I am
here saying is not against you personally Ron.

However, you see how difficult attaining authentic
objectivity can be.

Generally speaking, I find that for a
Markan-prioritist, even in a world without Mark who
looms highest on the horizon? Mark! Phantom-Mark,
Super-Mark, Mark-the-invincible, Ubiquitous-Mark, &c.

So even the material NOT IN MARK is found --- guess
where ?? --- PRIMARILY IN MARK!!!

PROOF (Sorry Ron, but you >DID< volunteer!)
> Suppose Mark was not extant, and we tried to
> reconstruct the source behind
> Matthew and Luke. What would we end up with? Well
> the "Double Tradition" in
> this scenario would consist primarily of parts of
> Mark,
[snip] (This quote should be cited in a publication on
the Synoptic Problem and Objectivity.)

QED : Objectivity unattained!
Ergo : For a Markan-prioritist, even in a world
without Mark who looms highest on the horizon? Mark!

Why would the scenario [as you put it] alter the
definition of the "Double Tradition" with or without
quotes? If you mean to say something different then
say it. I see no need to discuss using the cryptic
phraseology the "Double Tradition" COMBINED with the
"Triple Tradition" rather than just simply saying Mt,
Mk, Lk, or the Synoptic Gospels, since it constitutes
virtually 100 per cent of Mark. I think the breakdown
is Mt in the "Triple Tradition" is more than 90 per
cent and Lk more than 50 per cent, add that to >not
Mk< or the "Double Tradition", and you have virtually
the Synoptic Gospels. So why speak in those term? The
question is rhetorical.


BTW, I deliberately wrote >their canonical Gospels<,
not to provoke, but to point out that this view is as
valid as anyone attempting to argue the contrary in
favor of evolving mutable texts through time.  No, I
am not looking for a discussion on this--

Peace,
John

--- Ron Price <ron.price@...> wrote:

> John and Mark,
>
> Thanks for your replies, but you both appear to have
> missed my point.
>
> Mark Matson wrote:
>
> > have you seen the article by Eric Eve, entitled
> "Reconstructing Mark: A
> > Thought Experiment" in Questioning Q. ?
>
> Yes.
>
> > He essentially does this for Mark.
>
> Eric does something different, for he posits a
> scenario in which Q is extant
> as well as Matthew and Luke. I am positing that only
> Matthew and Luke are
> extant.
>
> - - - - - - -
>
> John Lupia wrote:
>
> > By definition QED the DT is material common to MT
> & LK
> > not found in MK. So parts of Mark . . . is
> contrary to
> > the definition.
>
> My "Double Tradition" (note the quote marks) was
> referring to the posited
> scenario in which, in the absence of an extant Mark,
> we tried to reconstruct
> the source(s) of Matthew and Luke. It would include
> the majority of what we
> now know as Mark because what we know as Triple
> Tradition would become
> "Double Tradition" in the absence of Mark.
>
> - - - - - - -
>
> Thus the "Double Tradition" in  my scenario would
> consist of the Double
> Tradition as we know it plus the Triple Tradition as
> we know it, and these
> would be inextricably mixed together. We (Farrer,
> 2ST and 3ST advocates
> alike) know that this "Double Tradition" has more
> than one source (Mark plus
> at least one other).
> So surely scholars should acknowledge the
> possibility (and arguably on the
> basis of the posited scenario, the probability) that
> our Double Tradition
> has more than one source?!
>
>
> Ron Price
>
> Derbyshire, UK
>
> Web site:
> http://homepage.virgin.net/ron.price/index.htm
>
>
>


John N. Lupia, III
Beachwood,  New Jersey 08722 USA; Beirut, Lebanon
Fax: (732) 349-3910
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Roman-Catholic-News/
God Bless Everyone



________________________________________________________________________________\
____
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photos & more.
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Ron wrote: <<Suppose Mark was not extant, and we tried to reconstruct the source
behind Matthew and Luke.>>

?

Might we not however, on the proposed scenario, ask a different (and more
fundamental) question: how do these two texts of Matthew and Luke relate to
each? Did the author of one text know the work of the other? If so, is "source"
the?most illuminating?category?to employ in the effort to understand?the
relationship between the two texts? Might not a category like "literary
imitation" be far more helpful? [And would it not be tempting then, on this
hypothesis, to construct a basic Gospel narrative that reconciles these two
Gospels, eliminating places where they contradict, popularizing, dramatizing the
narratives, etc.? Oh, and does this perhaps explain the origin of our Gospel of
Mark?]

Leonard Maluf
Blessed?John XXIII National Seminary
Weston, MA



________________________________________________________________________
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at AOL.com.


[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

I had written:
>> Suppose Mark was not extant, and we tried to
>> reconstruct the source behind
>> Matthew and Luke. What would we end up with? Well
>> the "Double Tradition" in
>> this scenario would consist primarily of parts of
>> Mark,

John Lupia replied:
> [snip] (This quote should be cited in a publication on
> the Synoptic Problem and Objectivity.)
>
> QED : Objectivity unattained!
> Ergo : For a Markan-prioritist, even in a world
> without Mark who looms highest on the horizon? Mark!

John,

Again your conclusion is based on a misunderstanding. Perhaps my wording was
not clear enough. I meant "... the "Double Tradition" in this scenario would
consist primarily of parts of material which most scholars in the real world
attribute to Mark." I did not mean to imply that in this scenario scholars
would be able to reconstruct the canonical Mark. Indeed I think it unlikely
that they would be able to do so.

My argument is that the scenario's "Double Tradition" would in fact (as seen
from the real world via Farrer, 2ST or 3ST) consist of more than one source,
but that if Farrer and 2ST supporters apply to my scenario the assumption
they use in the real world (the Double Tradition has a single source), they
will therefore arrive at the wrong conclusion. The "Double Tradition" in my
scenario is analogous to the Double Tradition in the real world, both
containing a mixture of narrative and sayings (albeit in different
proportions). Therefore the real world assumption of Farrer and 2ST
supporters is simplistic. QED.

Ron Price

Derbyshire, UK

Web site: http://homepage.virgin.net/ron.price/index.htm

I'm reading through H.A. Kelly's _Satan: A Biography_ and I note with
interest that when he comes to discussing Mk. 3:23-27, where Jesus
speaks both of a satan and of Satan,  Kelly states that we have not one
but five parables/comparisons.

I am, I admit, far far behind where I should be in parable studies, and
I don't know if what Kelly asserts has any scholarly support.  So can
anyone tell me if Kelly's claim is mooted/disscussed/upheld by anyone
else?

Yours,

Jeffrey
--
Jeffrey B. Gibson, D.Phil. (Oxon)
1500 W. Pratt Blvd.
Chicago, Illinois
e-mail jgibson000@...

I'm a bit confused. I read Mark 3:23-27 in both English and Greek and see  no
reference to both A satan and Satan. The text seems to simply say Satan,
without any article or qualifier. Is this interpretation widely accepted?



Rev. Charles Schwartz, Associate Pastor
St. Joan of Arc
Marlton, NJ





************************************** Get a sneak peek of the all-new AOL at
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[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

Charles<

The definite article does not appear in the Greek before either usage
of satanas in Mk 3:23, but it does appear before the usage of satanas
in 3:26.

D. B. Peabody

Quoting fathchuck@...:

> I'm a bit confused. I read Mark 3:23-27 in both English and Greek and see  no
> reference to both A satan and Satan. The text seems to simply say Satan,
> without any article or qualifier. Is this interpretation widely accepted?
>
>
>
> Rev. Charles Schwartz, Associate Pastor
> St. Joan of Arc
> Marlton, NJ
>
>
>
>
>
> ************************************** Get a sneak peek of the all-new AOL at
> http://discover.aol.com/memed/aolcom30tour
>
>
> [Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
>
>



--
David Barrett Peabody
Professor of Religion
Nebraska Wesleyan University
5000 St. Paul Ave.
Lincoln, NE 68504
(402) 465-2302
www.nebrwesleyan.edu/people/dbp

I've doing some reading in and about Papias of late and have a
question.  J. B. Lightfoot and Eduard Schweizer (not sure on the
latter) have both explained the Elder's comments about Mark not being
"in order" etc as to be taken in comparison to the Elder's own gospel,
or at least his oral teaching of the material that would become the
4th gospel.  This seems to me a very likely explanation since it seems
that the Elder had something to do with the 4th Gospel and it is well
known that the chronology of John differs from the Synoptics,
sometimes significantly.

HOwever, I haven't seen this idea referred to or discussed much in
assessments of Papias' comments regarding Mark and the Synoptics.  Is
it because it isn't a widely known idea, or has it for some reason
that I've not discovered yet been shown to be unlikely?

As I write I also think of Irenaeus, and I should go look this up but
I'm going off memory, who excoriates a set of Christians in part for
having only the gospel of Mark and so therefore according to him have
gone into error.  But part of his comments have to do with the issue
of "time", how old Jesus was, how long his ministry was, etc (does he
use similar vocabulary to Papias' Elder, such as "taxis"?  I don't
have immediate access to a text of Irenaeus.), and how this effects
order and  the measure of time.  This would seem to possibly be a
continuation of the same discussion as Papias reports of the Elder,
there are problems in the Marcan, specifically (and perhaps the
Synoptics in general), ordering of Jesus' life.

Thanks in advance!


BTW, as long as I have your attention, about 10 years Charles Hill
published an article in JTS on Eusebius' source of information
regarding the composition of Luke and John as being Papias.  I found
the article convincing and to have explanatory power re: Eusebius and
his use and disparagement of Papias.  I wonder if any others here have
read it and what they thought.

Larry Swain
University of Illinois at Chicago

Larry,

In my studies I frequently came across the idea that Papias frowned on Mark,
because his order didn' t match the Johannine order. As I recall it was
explained that John placed the entry in Jerusalem early in hs Gospel in
contradition to the synoptics.
However, I myself came to the conclusion that 'taxis' is connected with the
Jewish feasts. LS shows that taxis may be a military term OR a term used for the
order of priestly sacrifice. It sparked my research in the at the time hotly
debated sacrificial calender question concerning Pesach (Passover) and Shabuoth
(Pentecost): the socalled Boethusian question in rabbinica.
I came to the conclusion that the 'sabbata' in the first chapters of Mark refer
to the seven Pentecostal weeks on the Jewish festival calendar. Thus Mark
started with Pentecost and ends up with Pesach. Thus Mark didnot write in the
right order.
If interested I'll be happy to refer you to the pages of my study.

cordially,

Karel


   ----- Original Message -----
   From: Larry J. Swain
   To: Synoptic@yahoogroups.com
   Sent: Friday, August 03, 2007 7:19 PM
   Subject: [Synoptic-L] Papias


   I've doing some reading in and about Papias of late and have a
   question. J. B. Lightfoot and Eduard Schweizer (not sure on the
   latter) have both explained the Elder's comments about Mark not being
   "in order" etc as to be taken in comparison to the Elder's own gospel,
   or at least his oral teaching of the material that would become the
   4th gospel. This seems to me a very likely explanation since it seems
   that the Elder had something to do with the 4th Gospel and it is well
   known that the chronology of John differs from the Synoptics,
   sometimes significantly.

   HOwever, I haven't seen this idea referred to or discussed much in
   assessments of Papias' comments regarding Mark and the Synoptics. Is
   it because it isn't a widely known idea, or has it for some reason
   that I've not discovered yet been shown to be unlikely?

   As I write I also think of Irenaeus, and I should go look this up but
   I'm going off memory, who excoriates a set of Christians in part for
   having only the gospel of Mark and so therefore according to him have
   gone into error. But part of his comments have to do with the issue
   of "time", how old Jesus was, how long his ministry was, etc (does he
   use similar vocabulary to Papias' Elder, such as "taxis"? I don't
   have immediate access to a text of Irenaeus.), and how this effects
   order and the measure of time. This would seem to possibly be a
   continuation of the same discussion as Papias reports of the Elder,
   there are problems in the Marcan, specifically (and perhaps the
   Synoptics in general), ordering of Jesus' life.

   Thanks in advance!

   BTW, as long as I have your attention, about 10 years Charles Hill
   published an article in JTS on Eusebius' source of information
   regarding the composition of Luke and John as being Papias. I found
   the article convincing and to have explanatory power re: Eusebius and
   his use and disparagement of Papias. I wonder if any others here have
   read it and what they thought.

   Larry Swain
   University of Illinois at Chicago





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Those looking for recent studies on Papias should be
aware that Edward Henry Hall: Papias And His
Contemporaries; was originally published in 1899 and
freshly reprinted this year in 2007.


Some recent bibliography on Papias:


Bauckham, Richard, Jesus and the Eyewitnesses : the
Gospels as Eyewitness Testimony. (Grand Rapids, Mich.
: William B. Eerdmans Pub. Co., 2006)see also
Bauckham, Richard,  The Eyewitnesses and the Gospel
Tradition. JSHJ 1 (2003) : 28-60.


Foster, Paul, The Writings of the Apostolic Fathers
(T&T Clark, 2007)


Gundry, R H, The Apostolically Johannine pre-Papian
Tradition Concerning the Gospels of Mark and Matthew,
in Gundry R H, The Old is Better: New Testament Essays
in Support of Traditional Interpretations,  (Tübingen:
Mohr Siebeck, 2005) : 49-73.


Holmes, Michael W., The Apostolic Fathers in English
(Grand Rapids, Mich. : Baker Academic,2006)


Norelli, Enrico, ed., Papias of Hierapolis,
Esposizione degli oracoli del signore. I
frammenti.(Letture Christiane del Primo Millennio,
36.)
See also Bockmuehl, M., The Journal of Ecclesiastical
History, 57, no. 1 (2006): 99-100


Norelli, Enrico, et alia, Papias de Hiérapolis a-t-il
utilisé un recueil "canonique" des quatre évangiles?,
dans : G. Aragione, E. Junod et E. Norelli (dir.), Le
canon du Nouveau Testament. Regards nouveaux sur
l'histoire de sa formation, Le monde de la Bible 54,
Genève 2005, p. 35-85.


Pouderon et Duval, La mémoire des origines
chrétiennes: Papias et Hégésippe chez Eusèbe:
L’historiographie de l’Eglise des premiers siècles,
éd. B. Pouderon; Y.-M. Duval (Théologie historique
114), Paris, Beauchesne, 2001, p. 1-22.


Sim, David C., "The Gospel of Matthew, John the Elder
and the Papias Tradition: A response to R H Gundry,"
HTS 63(1) 2007


Tasmuth, R., "Authority, Authorship, and Apostolicity
as a Part of the Johannine Question: The Role of
Papias in the Search for the Authoritative Author of
the Gospel of John," Concordia journal. 33, no. 1,
(2007): 26-42


John N. Lupia, III
Beachwood,  New Jersey 08722 USA; Beirut, Lebanon
Fax: (732) 349-3910
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Roman-Catholic-News/
God Bless Everyone



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I beg the pardon of listers for passing along a blog entry of my own-
but I think there really might be widespread interest in this.  At
least, I hope so.

http://drjimwest.wordpress.com/2007/08/06/the-bible-in-its-traditions/

Jim

+++++++++++++++

Jim West, ThD
http://drjimwest.wordpress.com

Hi all,
I've just added a poll on my little blog asking voters to indicate what their
institutions teach regarding the Q hypothesis. Comments welcome.

http://sourcetheory.blogspot.com/

Thanks,
Tim Lewis

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