the_cave

Yes, that is what I am suggesting. The post-resurrection stories don't need to have been written down to produce Corinthians 15:3-11; oral traditions would have sufficed quite nicely. I see no reason to assume that aMark was the total inventor of the post-resurrection stories. In a semi-literate culture, I would expect there to have been oral traditions first, and for aMark to work from those.

Again, it would be a strange thing for the angel to tell the woman that Peter and the disciples would see the risen Jesus in Galilee, if the reader did not already think that it had happened. It would also be quite surprising if Jesus' repeated claim that the disciples would see him there was not understood by either aMark or his readers to be true. Note also that the Gospel of Peter strongly implies that Peter and his companions were about to encounter the risen Jesus at "the sea". Noting the parallels between the end of GPet and Jn 21, I would wager that the earliest post-resurrection story was in fact this story, of an appearance on Lake Galilee.

(While I'm at it, it is not true that all the gospels make the women the first to see the risen Jesus; indeed, as you agree, Jesus does not appear to the woman at all in the earliest copies of gMark that we have. Furthermore, in the Lukan account, Clopas and his companion seem to be an exception to your claim. Unless you are claiming that either Clopas or the other disciple, or both, were originally intended to be a woman, which would be interesting.)

You're confusing two kinds of veracity. One is the veracity of, let's say, empirical evidence. The other is the "veracity" of other creedal claims. I am saying that whatever an interpolator's other motivations, he couldn't have been very familiar to the gospel traditions, and/or they were not very important to him. This suggests an earlier date for any interpolation, rather than a later one. So while there may be a case for interpolation, I don't think you can base it on an argument that the passage betrays a late date--because it doesn't. Later than Paul, perhaps. Later than the gospels, much less likely.

Yes, maybe--or maybe not. Point being that there is just as equally not an appearance to the Eleven in gJohn, either.

Ok, but that was not a creedal edit!

But if you're right about the dating, then he had the gospels staring him in the face.

But, see--if he didn't, then the interpolation can make sense. So he must not have been very familiar with the written, canonical gospel traditions. He only knew about the earlier stories that the written, canonical gospels were based on. For one thing, the only gospel that we know of that features a separate appearance to James is Jerome's Gospel of the Hebrews--so whatever an interpolator was working from, it was not based on our canonical, written gospels.

spin

They are not presented as simple oral traditions. The way they have been structured suggests some performative aspect to the text -- hence creedal.

(Given that there aren't any in Mark.)

This seems to confuse augmenting a story with changing it.

In Mark it is said once (not repeated) and that was in 14:28, ie after the little apocalypse.

(You got me. We can forget Mary Magdalene, who I was thinking of.)

I thought my statement showed no confusion, nor scope for you to meaningfully pursue this sort of logic.

What I've tried to say to you is that an interpolator's work may take precedence over the original tradition. Look at Paul's feast in 1 Cor 11 in which attendees were abusing the feast and Paul needed to deal with them not respecting it. Somehow the communal feast ends up a reflection of the last supper and the fix up almost hides Paul's original issue. The interpolator is more interested in what he has to say than what was there before.

I don't accept your premise.

I think 20:26-29 fits, don't you?

That doesn't change the anything: the interpolation is more important than the context, as I went on to say in the next sentence:

Errors were made frequently. Matt 1:17 talks about three series of 14 names, but if you read it there are aonly 13 names in one of those series. Ooops. There are numerous examples.


spin

the_cave

I agree--also making them more closely linked to oral traditions IMO. Certainly more so than the written Mt-Lk tradition of an appearance to the Eleven.

I was talking about post-resurrection stories, of which there is one in original gMark--though we both agree this is not a post-resurrection appearance story.

Either way, both the author and the reader need to already have an implicit understanding that there was indeed an appearance in Galilee. Why? Because there is no appearance in Galilee in gMark.

I'm saying that if it's an orthodox creedal edit, then it's in conflict with Matthew and Luke. The best explanation for this is not that the interpolator willfully ignored Mt and Lk; it's that he was unaware of them.

So you think there is an interpolation in 1 Cor 11? Where does it begin and end?

Nope. There is no appearance to either an Eleven or Twelve there! There is just an appearance to the disciples. That's it.

It is you who made the claim that since the earliest tradition was about an appearance to the Eleven, that any appearance to the Twelve had to come later. So it is you who say it could not be due to simple error.

Now, I agree: it could have been a mistake. Or it could have been due to a tradition that did not know of an Eleven. Either way, it could have been done at any time--so the presence of "the Twelve" provides no evidence for dating the passage.

spin

You can believe that conjecture.

11:23-27 (with a later clarification in 11:29 through the addition of "of the lord" to make it fit a little better -- which has manuscript evidence).

Who have been numbered in 6:66-71.

Matt 1:17 is an imposition on the existent data, which is once again someone coming and putting in new material which doesn't need to accord with the old. That creates the error. Such errors help to show the layering of a text.


spin

Ben C Smith

Sorry, spin, but my time is tight right now, so I will respond to only a handful of pertinent items, and that only briefly.

As the_cave pointed out, the earliest gospel has no appearance to women, and its only implied appearance was to Peter and the twelve. Why did, say, Matthew take and fill out this implied appearance to the twelve but yet insert a previous appearance to women?

I mean, of course, that I think the tradition of an appearance to the twelve (as a whole, unsullied group) predates the tradition of an appearance to only eleven (twelve minus one).

(BTW, here is one of my favorite anagrams: Twelve plus one = eleven plus two.)

I think you are introducing a Lucan anachronism here. What reason is there from the list itself to assume a switch from flesh and blood to visions? What reason is there in the rest of Paul to assume such a switch? I think the answer is the same for both questions, because Paul offers no split between resurrection and exaltation — no forty days of earthly tenure followed by an ascension.

Ben.

Steven Carr

What sort of occasion could have brought 500+ Christians together?

Were they having a convention?

Is this supposed to have happened before the Ascension, in which case how could they have seen a bodily resurrected Jesus? Were they the only witnesses to the Second Coming?

I thought the Christian movement was supposed to have been defeated at the crucifixion, so that even the disciples went into hiding.

So why did these 500+ gather together?

That is a *lot* of people.

bacht

John the Baptist attracted large crowds, maybe the story was originally attached to him? (maybe also the scattering of the believers, attached to Stephen's death in Acts?)

spamandham

The simple answer is, that the claim of 500 witnesses is not historical.

Amaleq13

That is certainly simple but does it really answer anything?

Is it an addition to a pre-existing list?

Why was it added?

Why, if it was an addition, was it assumed that it would be accepted by readers?

gurugeorge

As it stands, the un-interpolated reconstruction doesn't make sense prefaced by "Now I make known to you" because the uninterpolated passage doesn't make any creed or gospel known to anyone. The passage leaps from "Now I make known to you [fluff]" with nothing substantive or credal actually being made known before the "but" comes in at 12. The "but" then doesn't make sense, since nothing has been expounded before it.