aChristian

If you want me to answer you, send me a private message or start a new post. I am going to stop interrupting Adam's line of arguement.

Adam

Hopefully getting us back on track, here is my sixth eyewitness to Jesus who left a written record, the Proto-Luke derived by B. H. Streeter in 1924. That Simon wrote it seems to be my original idea, so I'll make this post longer.
Proto-Luke
This Q-Twelve-Source text remained in Aramaic. Next came a further stage of additions in Aramaic. The traces of who did this can be discerned by looking for personal clues. We need active characters in Luke who appear nowhere else in the Synoptics. The key name is Simon. The personal experience introduced at this stage starts with a Simon and ends with a Simon. I call this stage of the document “Proto-Luke”, a modification of B. H. Streeter’s theory. Luke 7:36-50 tells of Jesus going to a dinner at the home of Simon the Pharisee. Luke 24:13-35 is about the resurrected Jesus on the road to Emmaus with two disciples. One is Cleopas. As to the other, “The Lord has indeed risen and has appeared to Simon.” Traditionally everyone assumes this refers to Simon Peter. However, scripture does not mention any prior appearance of the risen Jesus to Peter. No, the plain meaning is that Jesus had appeared to Cleopas and a different Simon. Just as the Q-Twelve-Source ended at this point, so did Proto-Luke. [Origen also recognized this connection between Cleopas and Simon as the two disciples on the road to Emmaus.]

This Simon may be a well-recognized figure in the early Christian Church. The so-called brothers (probably cousins) of Jesus were James, Joseph, Jude, and Simon. James was the first leader of the Church. When he was killed (c. 62 A.D.), Simon his brother became Bishop of Jerusalem.
http://megasociety.org/noesis/181.htm#Underlying
The eyewitness role of Simon Barsabbas would presumably be limited to passages in Luke between Luke 7:36 and 24:51. He might have been the source of the Infancy Narrative in Luke 1 and 2, but as eyewitness only if he were a step-brother older than Jesus who accompanied his father Joseph to Bethlehem. Nor would he have been the source of any passages already attributable to earlier eyewitnesses John Mark, Peter, and Matthew. He could quite reasonably have been one of the Seventy-Two. (Indeed, that is additional reason to suppose that some non-apostle was the source of the information we find only in Luke 10:1, 17.) He may also be the Simeon called Niger in Acts 13:1.

That I present my original idea that this Simon wrote Proto-Luke means that I should show what in Luke may be his eyewitness testimony. He was most likely younger than Jesus, so his eyewitness testimony could not in that case precede Luke 3:7-10, 16-17 about John the Baptist. Next we can establish that this eyewitness wrote verses that we now find only in Luke. The.whole passage in Luke 7:36-50 is so full of detail that it seems like eyewitness testimony. Every verse shows several instances of what looks like eyewitness detail. One stands out, however: verse 39: “When the Pharisee who had invited him saw this, he said to himself, ‘If this man were a prophet, he would know who this woman is and what sort of person it is who is touching him and what a bad name she has.’ “ This could have been told to someone else, but this does give first priority to this Simon as the author, telling us his own thoughts.

In the immediately following verses we encounter the first instance (in any of the gospels) in which we see other people as regular adherents of Jesus: “certain women….Magdalene… Joanna…Susanna, and many others” (Luke 8:2-3). The next purely Lucan passages skip over to Luke 9:51, where Jesus starts the final journey to Jerusalem. So “he sent messengers ahead of him. These set out, and they went into a Samaritan village to make preparations for him, but the people would not receive him because he was making for Jerusalem.” At this point James and John get rebuked, but anyone present would know who they were, so this is not good evidence that either of them was the author (and certainly not James who died too young).
In contrast we find Luke 9:57-60 listing sayings with such verbal exactitude that we can see it got copied over (from a stage of Q that was already in Greek) into Matthew 8:18-22. Luke 10: 13-15 got copied.to Mt. 11:21-24. Similarly Luke 10:21-24 parallels Matthew 11:25-27 and 13:16-17, and Luke 11:9-13 is very much like Mt. 7:7-11. The Sign of Jonah is at both Luke 11:29-32 and Mt. 12:38-42. There is a pattern here: wherever Proto-Luke introduced vibrant, piquant material, it went into Matthew in chronological context. Only the anti-Pharisaic broadsides from Jesus got shunted to their own special section in Matthew 23:23-24:51.

The stray verses about the Seventy-two (Luke 10:1, 17-20) got inserted among old Q material in which there are no verbal identities. We can also assign to Proto-Luke a great part of what follows in the Perean Ministry. Most notably they may include the stories of the Good Samaritan (Luke 10:29-37) and the Prodigal Son (Luke 15:11-32). Stories that seem most like an eyewitness are found at Luke 10:38-42 (Martha and Mary), 11:1 (preceding the Lord’s Prayer that got copied to Mt. 6:9-13); 11:27-28; 11:37-38, 45, 53-54; 12:13-15; 12:41; 13:1; 13:10-17; 13:22; 13:31; 14:1, 7, 12, 15; 15:1; 17:1-21; 19:1-27 (including the story of Zacchaeus, with intense eyewitness touches); 22:31-38; 23:8-12, 27-32, 39-43, 47-49; and 24:13-53. More broadly, we should attribute to this source also 11:2-13, 29-32, 47-51; 12:35-48; 13:1-17; 13:22-14:14; 14:28-33; 15:8-10; 16:1-12, 19-31; 17:7-21; 18:1-13; and 19:38b-44.
How fitting that a close relative of Jesus, who wrote the main gospel existing in 62 AD, would be selected as the leader of the Church in Jerusalem!

Referring back to the source just previously listed, the Q-Twelve-Source in Mark drew from a different Aramaic copy, so the Greek translations in Mark never show verbal exactitude with Luke. That contrasts with the Petrine Ur-Marcus sections of Mark that were copied into Luke with such frequent exact word usage.

That traces all the eyewitnesses I can identify in the Synoptics. Each of them contains several other chapters that I cannot show come from eyewitnesses. I’ll turn back to John to identify another eyewitness, though his role there is primarily as an editor. But first there is another editor, who may be the aforementioned first eyewitness, John Mark.

Steven Carr

ADAM
We need active characters in Luke who appear nowhere else in the Synoptics.

CARR
In other words, we need people for whom there is no evidence that they existed.

Adam's entire posting was simply made up junk, of no value whatever.

The anonymous author of Luke was very careful not to reveal his sources.

People who do that are deceitful, and trying to hide their deceit. A real historian reveals his sources, as would any honest person.

MCalavera

Humans lie, that's a given. Doesn't mean one needs spiritual salvation for his sins.

MCalavera

How do we know they're honest?

And do note that the eyewitnesses themselves didn't say such a thing.

MCalavera

Nah, the Gospel accounts are theologically driven. And we don't have evidence that people can be raised completely from the dead.

Simplest explanation is that this resurrection thing was fabricated.

The way I see it, it was a sad day for his followers when Jesus their Messiah died. They needed hope. Thus, the idea of resurrection.

MCalavera

Actually, his idol did lie according to the Bible.

Nathan Poe

That's one possibility -- IF one begins with the assumption that the Gospels were intended to be historical/biographical, then Jesus' supposedly impossible demise would need to be explained, downplayed, and turned into a positive message for his followers.

BUT -- what if the Gospels were never meant to be a factual account in the first place? Suppose instead that they were written as an allegory, a liturgy, or a midrash? Then, the question one needs to ask isn't how or why such and such an event happened, but what does it mean?

We can already see the events grow in stature and importance as time passes -- one need only read the Gospels chronologically to see that -- so what was the message that the writers, individually and collectively, were trying to convey?

Sheshbazzar

And where IN THE NT TEXTS did you come across this bit of 'information' Adam?
'Presumably' by exactly whom Adam?
Not by anyone without a bias and an agenda, wishing to build a straw house.

....But equally, he just as likely MIGHT NOT HAVE BEEN.

straw house.
The TEXT do not say, or even suggest this.

You are simply pulling it out of your @$$.
You have thus far totally failed to establish that 'John Mark, Peter, or Matthew', the charcters in highly fictional and highly improbable mythical story, were ever even real, living persons, much less ever real 'eyewitness' to any miracles, or to anything else at all.

Your shoddily construted straw house wouldn't stand up in a breeze.

And he could just as equally quite reasonably NOT have been one of the Seventy-Two.

Straw house.
No, it is not a valid reason to 'suppose' any such thing- unless you are pre-assuming your desired conclusion.

More straw.
But equally as likely he MAY NOT BE.

Straw.
But then again, equally, MAY NOT BE his eyewiness testimony.

More straw.
But you don't know any such thing, and none of the texts provide any such information.

You are making this shit up on the fly.

More straw.
A further unwarranted leap from the former shaky premise.

More straw.
WOAH THERE PARDNER!
You cannot 'establish' anything on a bunch of 'MAY BE's, 'PRESUMABLY's', 'MIGHT HAVE BEEN's', 'IF's, and 'SUPPOSE'S'

Empty assertion made of straw.

With absolutely no evidence that it IS eyewitness testimony, and not simply narrative in an entertaining but fictional story.
That however is not any evidence that it IS eywitness detail.

Straw.
You really ought to get a clue, it is only in fictional writings that a characters unspoken thoughts make it into the narrative.
Guessing, guessing, and guessing.
And NO it DOES NOT 'give first priority to this Simon as the author', given all of the preceeding 'presumably's', 'may haves', 'could have been's, and 'possiblies'.
'SEEM' like, is NOT any evidence that they ARE eyewitness accounts.

ANY half-way decent narrative STORY with speaking characters is going to 'SEEM LIKE' it originated from an eyewitness perspective.
The conversations between Captain Ahab and his crew SEEM most LIKE detailed eyewitness accounts.
Just because the authors of these books remained anonymous does not contribute to them being anything other than fictional religious propaganda stories.

PURE unadultrated horse-shit!
You have absolutely not ONE IOTA of evidence of ANY 'Gospel' existing in 62 AD.
Much less any solid evidence of by whom, where, or when any of these Gospels were written.
Well then you are totally up shit-crick witout a paddle. Because you have failed to prove, or to provide even one single 'eyewitness'.
And you have not actuallly shown any chapters that did come from eyewitnesses.
Oooo, I am waiting breathlessly.







.

MCalavera

You can go with that explanation, but the simpler explanation is that they were trying to promote Jesus as the Messiah to the readers and that they were describing what Jesus did and how Jesus died (albeit with very theologically driven motives and bias).

Your explanation demands evidence that they were meant to be taken, on the whole, allegorically and such. Luke 1:1-4 is one passage that goes against that assumption.