Ted Hoffman

Hi Yuri,
Sorry. That was not the intention I had. I apologise.

Wow, Yuri. Tall list. Dont you think its a mite too tall ? - I mean, just to discuss your essay?

Why do I have to reinvent the wheel when we have you here. You have read and understood the books, so you could perharps be kind enough to supply only the relevant details?

Come on <squeezes Yuris shoulder gently> dont be too touchy
Sorry it came off that way.

Just an opinion Yuri. Just expressing an opinion. That was all. Its all up to you.

No, I haven't.

I perused it - I will read more and respond to it.

That much is clear now.

The fact that scholars talk of strata, and sources, and interpolations and proto this and proto that, literary borrowings, traditions etc - all these imply evolution. None of the Gospels are known to have been written on stone ex-nihilo and to have remained unchanged over time.

I do not agree that I should have no knowledge gaps before I am qualified to debate on this matter. The manner in which you handle perceived knowledge gaps doesn't speak very well about you.

Ted Hoffman

Since Vinnies essay was more focused on the question of Markan priority, I will discuss MP when I start that coming thread.

keyser_soze

I don't think he is saying that he wants you to have NO gaps, but probably feels that you definately need more information on the subject before launching into what appeared(but now we are otherwise informed) to be an adversarial debate on his theory. His work is good, and knowing yuri, I think it is unlikely that he meant to sound as harsh as he did. A failure of communication in both directions, perhaps you two could discuss it post-study in a more genial manner? You will enjoy the reading, but you should really read some of his list before tearing into his position. He makes a strong argument, but if you are not read on the subject, it will be hard going.

Now, boxers....please bump gloves and re-enter your corners for the bell.

Ted Hoffman

Your point is well taken. What I disagree with is being asked to read his website and book, YET I am not discussing his website or book. What I did not understand (about marcionite controversy and its role), I asked.

There are things in his essay that I understand, like its general thrust and most of his arguments. I merely pressed him to support them. Its incorrect to expect one to accept (unsupported)arguments from another simply because the latter has spent 20 years studying the subject.

I think I should now move on to Koester...

Yuri Kuchinsky

Jacob,

Fair enough, I accept your apology for some of those things you said. And, in turn, I'd also like to apologise for the general tone of my own response to you that was probably a bit too angry. It's just that both your responses in that other thread about the SecMk, combined with your response in this thread made me feel as if you just want to argue for the sake of arguing. Oh, well, perhaps it was just a misperception on my part, so now perhaps we can lay the whole thing to rest.

Well, the Griesbachians have been quite adamant for a long time that Mk wasn't the earliest gospel. A lot of their detailed critiques are quite valid, although not all... Their own insistence on the Matthean priority limits their critique considerably IMO. Matthean priority theory also has many weak spots of its own.

Quote:

The fact that scholars talk of strata, and sources, and interpolations and proto this and proto that, literary borrowings, traditions etc - all these imply evolution. None of the Gospels are known to have been written on stone ex-nihilo and to have remained unchanged over time.

Now, the question here is whether or not I'm right in comparing the mainstream NT scholars to creationists. This is of course a very broad label, but I continue to stand by this _general_ characterisation.

You reply by saying that "scholars talk of strata, and sources, and interpolations and proto this and proto that, literary borrowings, traditions..."

OK, let's go through this list one by one.

STRATA
Who exactly is talking about the compositional strata in Mk? Please name some scholars other than Koester.

SOURCES
This is irrelevant to my thesis.

INTERPOLATIONS
Who exactly is talking about the interpolations in Mk, other than Koester? (The ending of Mk may be an exception here, and can be considered as a separate subject.)

And who exactly is talking about the interpolations in Paul at this time? This is generally a very taboo subject in NT scholarly literature.

PROTO THIS AND PROTO THAT
Who exactly is talking about the proto-Mk nowadays (other than Koester)?

LITERARY BORROWINGS, TRADITIONS
This is irrelevant to my thesis.

My main focus is the textual evolution of Mk _after_ the earliest edition was composed. So who exactly is talking about this at this time?

Yours,

Yuri.

Vinnie

Not the Jerome Bible commentray, they dismiss the argumetns put forth in my argument.

I find in my limited readings that "canonical scholars" fail to see the textual problems with their canon. Other scholars like Koester and Stevan Davis and others who don't priotize canonical materials are more open in this regard.

Though Kummel intro to the nT did say all Christian texts are unstable or some such. A few scholars recognize this but Yuri is right, a lot of scholars seem to want to ignore the textual instability of early Christian texts. I can document this instability quite well and would even formally debate the subject here if someone wants to take up the opposite side. It would be quite easy.

Have to run

Ted Hoffman

I believe Crossan does - considering his first stratum, second stratum etc - one can see we have e.g. sayings collections, miracles collections, then there are arguments about expurging of proleptic passages in Secret Gospel of Mark to result in the (second) gospel of Mark. These layers were built upon each other and intergrated on various degrees; add to this cross-pollination together with literary borrowings (and here I have in mind Leidners arguments about aspects of the passion narrative being borrowed from the works of philo) and this basically can be considered as evolution of the Gospel(s). Even the ending of Mark (16:9-20) is argued to have been missing in the original ms.

So I disagree that "all of the Synoptic gospels somehow emerged into the world in a single act of creation". This is the argument you made - I notice that you have narrowed down to Mark in the questions you are directing to me.

Just to quote you in full:

I still think you need to prove this statement because it is grossly inaccurate. You seem more intent on putting me to task - which should not be the case because you were the one putting forth a positive argument (the evolutionary view). Which (a) I argue is not novel.

I also argue that (b) the statement above (highlighted) is false and not supported.

You also seem to be arguing like your claims are supported by Koester upfront in some way and so you use that to implicitly render my counterarguments invalid in case I use Koester to support me.
But you never did state that Koester supports your evolutionary view (though he does). So it seems opportunistic to take his side now that your ambitious claims are being questioned.

The following statements are evidence of this convenient cooption that I talk of:

Here is your work. The word "Koester" does NOT appear anywhere in it.

Yet you state "each of our mainstream Synoptic theories today -- whether it is 2ST, 2GT, or Farrer -- is premised essentially on the assumption that all of the Synoptic gospels somehow emerged into the world in a single act of creation -- each put together by a single writer, it seems, an exegetical genius of some sort, locked up in a private study somewhere, and isolated from all the others. And after each of the gospels had been written down "during the first century", it had been frozen textually, more or less, somewhat miraculously perhaps?...
So what follows, I submit, is an entirely realistic and rational account of the early history of Christian gospels, based on solid historical and textual evidence. It's too bad that, for our mainstream academic scholars, much of this might come as a complete shock"

Isn't Koester a "mainstream academic scholar"? How come you never mentioned him in your paper if his ideas support your own?
You use the words: "But what I'm offering here, on the other hand, is essentially an evolutionary view of gospels' history".

It seems a bit convenient to seek to have your theory identified with him now. From the get-go, you should have informed readers that what you are offering is not novel and that there are some "mainstream scholars" who support your theory. You failed to do that.

I maintain that using him to forestall arguments I might raise is invalid.

I will discuss more on Markan Priority when I will address Vinnie's paper.

You do touch on Mark but with all due respect, I dont think its textual evolution your main focus. You provide an almost equal treatment to all of the gospels except you introduce L as the original christian proto gospel. Which branched to Mark, Matthew and Luke. And when you talk of the protestant bias, the Jewish war, Marcion and liturgical use. I find that you treat "the gospels" equally - Mark doesn't seem to achieve special treatment. Indeed, the title of your article itself is a pointer to what you cover. I do not understand why you argue otherwise.

Indeed, I read your paper anticipating that Markan Priority would be your main focus. As I noted in my OP, I came off disapointed. One of the reasons, I read and responded to it was to dispel the myth that posters of this forum do not respond to serious articles.

Hoping this is not off-putting.

Ted Hoffman

Except Yuri doesn't say "a lot of" or even "most of" scholars.
He uses the all-inclusive "our mainstream academic scholars", not "some of our mainstream academic scholars".

But how do they express this "failure to recognize" textual instability? (wow, "instability" is a tricky word )

Yuri Kuchinsky

I'm offering an evolutionary view of gospels' history. I'm currently the leader in this area. (But of course my work is based to a great extent on previous research by Alfred Loisy.)

Some other scholars such as Koester also proposed something similar, but never to the same extent. In any case, nobody today knows anything about what Loisy proposed in his time.

My main priorities are as follows,

A. The textual evolution of all 4 gospels after their earliest editions were composed.

B. How the 2nd and 3rd century Church politics affected the textual development of the gospels.

C. How the Second Jewish War affected the textual development of the gospels.

Nobody today, except myself, is following up on these specific topics. Koester has done some work around my point A, but he only deals with Mk. At the same time he completely ignores the points B and C.

D. How the Syro-Latin, aka "Western" text (what I call the Peripheral text) preserves the original text of the gospels better than any other.

In modern English-language scholarship, only WL Petersen has done some work in this area, but I'm now going much further than he's ever gone.

Regards,

Yuri.

Ted Hoffman

Ok, ok Yuri. I get it.

Now, how about those credentials?