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Old 11-18-2007, 03:52 PM   #71
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Thank you Neil--I was about to post the following, after which I'll respond to some of your comments:

We must remember that Luke (ALuke, that is) is merging different sources into a single tale. [For spin: the evidence for this is in the prologue to Luke (GLuke, that is--which ALuke wrote!).] He is probably doing whatever it takes to make all the sources tell the same story. If he uses a name like "Cleopas", it could be for any reason--maybe it was a patronym in one source, or maybe it was the name of one of the travelers, or maybe he just used it because it was there (for example, he may have shared a source with John [for spin: GJohn, that is--which AJohn wrote!]--see Jn 19:25.)

However, here is a grammatical question: is Luke (both ALuke and GLuke, that is) really saying that the eleven make the claim about the resurrection and appearance to Simon? Why couldn't it be "those that were with them"? Remember that back in 24:10, the women are also joined by others who proclaim the resurrection. These others do not accompany the women to the tomb, but there they are on the way back--more evidence that Luke is trying to merge at least two sources. And then they seem to make another appearance in 24:34, saying just what they said in 24:10, but with more elaboration. They don't make the claim about Simon in 24:10, but what if they did in the original source--and so Luke is trying valiantly to explain why they would say so? (By making space in the narrative for it to happen.)

This doesn't answer the question of whether one of the two travelers was Simon or not, though I should point out that it would be odd for Luke to deliberately leave out an appearance to Simon. And if Emmaus is the appearance to Simon, then it would be odd for Luke to leave out his name! Is GLuke overtly anti-Petrine? ALuke is doing something funny here, but it's unclear what.

Finally, we can't leave out the possibility that one name or other has been overwritten by a later scribe in an attempt at harmonization--perhaps it was "Simon" with "Cleopas", or it was "Cleopas" with "Simon".


To which I'll add:


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Some scholars do find support in textual analysis that Luke knew and used John. -- And others do find reasons to believe that our canonical Luke-Acts was was written late and after the other gospels.
Yes, though I find it much more likely that Luke and John were sharing a source, rather than ALuke was using canonical GJohn.

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If we go along with that for a moment, and look at John again, then the possibility that Luke was in fact in dialogue with John over the first resurrection appearance emerges fairly strongly, I think.
Quite right--in fact all of the resurrection appearances are cross-linked with one another--analyzing them is a good way to understand which documents the authors were combining and rewriting. There were probably two or three original resurrection appearance stories, and there may have been more, since we need to think about the appearance to James in the Gospel of the Hebrews--note that one also involved a bread-breaking, like the appearance at Emmaus! I don't have the time to explain all the links right now, but maybe I'll do so at some point. (The Freer Logion is also of some help in this.)

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John's gospel has Simon Peter and an unnamed disciple running to the tomb, finding it as they had been told, and then said to be walking off to their homes.

So John has Simon Peter + an unnamed disciple walking off to their homes.
Yes, I noticed this myself some months ago...it's good to see I'm not alone. I actually hadn't thought of it for a while now, so thanks for reminding me.
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Old 11-19-2007, 06:38 AM   #72
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How much time does the text say has elapsed between the dawn events of verses 1-12 and the trip to Emmaus?
It doesn't say. But I can see you are now looking for wiggle room at the cost of the writer's narrative abilities.
There is no need to find wriggle room. The initial discovery of the tomb takes place at dawn, and the trip to Emmaus (7 miles walking distance from Jerusalem, I believe) culminates at evening. There is an entire morning and possibly even early afternoon left unaccounted for.

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Old 11-19-2007, 06:52 AM   #73
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Some scholars do find support in textual analysis that Luke knew and used John. -- And others do find reasons to believe that our canonical Luke-Acts was was written late and after the other gospels.

If we go along with that for a moment, and look at John again, then the possibility that Luke was in fact in dialogue with John over the first resurrection appearance emerges fairly strongly, I think.
I think you run into a bit of a problem here, or at least something that bears explaining. If the author of Luke knew the gospel of John, then the appearance of Clopas in John 19.25 and Cleopas in Luke 24.18 can hardly be coincidental.

Do you think John thought Clopas was Peter too? Or that Luke mistook him to be saying so? Or that Luke artificially turned Clopas into Cleopas = Peter?

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Old 11-19-2007, 01:14 PM   #74
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It doesn't say. But I can see you are now looking for wiggle room at the cost of the writer's narrative abilities.
There is no need to find wriggle room. The initial discovery of the tomb takes place at dawn, and the trip to Emmaus (7 miles walking distance from Jerusalem, I believe) culminates at evening. There is an entire morning and possibly even early afternoon left unaccounted for.
Wriggle, wriggle, wriggle. And you notice how the narrative is dealt with in 24:13-14. It shifts the reader's focus away from the tomb, idou ("behold" -- what's the purpose of that?), onto Emmaus narrative "that same day" in which the two participants take up and talk about the events that had just happened. Then they indicate clearly that no-one had seen Jesus at the tomb, though they went to check the women's report. The narrative has the clear aim of filling in the temporal gap, so that they two could confirm that Jesus had indeed risen.

Now of course you can wriggle against the narrative intent, but that would seem wanton.


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Old 11-19-2007, 01:22 PM   #75
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Wriggle, wriggle, wriggle.

....

Now of course you can wriggle against the narrative intent, but that would seem wanton.
My views only rarely are given the opportunity to be described as wanton, so I think I will just let this one stand as it is.

One general observation, though: It seems possible to me that, once I am through with a text, it might contain more examples of unevenness or fatigue than the original author included, while, once you are through with it, it might contain fewer such examples than the original author included.

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Old 11-19-2007, 01:37 PM   #76
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Wriggle, wriggle, wriggle. .... Now of course you can wriggle against the narrative intent, but that would seem wanton.
My views only rarely are given the opportunity to be described as wanton, so I think I will just let this one stand as it is.
:Cheeky:

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One general observation, though: It seems possible to me that, once I am through with a text, it might contain more examples of unevenness or fatigue than the original author included, while, once you are through with it, it might contain fewer such examples than the original author included.
This doesn't seem to deal with the basic problem of the intent of the passage which contains all the elements we are considering. Any fatigue reflects how the passage in a wider context. It is only the wider context that allows you to consider any fatigue.


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Old 11-19-2007, 07:12 PM   #77
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I think you run into a bit of a problem here, or at least something that bears explaining. If the author of Luke knew the gospel of John, then the appearance of Clopas in John 19.25 and Cleopas in Luke 24.18 can hardly be coincidental.

Do you think John thought Clopas was Peter too? Or that Luke mistook him to be saying so? Or that Luke artificially turned Clopas into Cleopas = Peter?
Of course it's not coincidental. I don't think there is any conflation of Peter and Clopas going on. The name was somehwhere near these passages in the shared source--my guess is that John's reading is closer to the source. Luke was just also using a version of either Mark or Matthew, and decided that Mary was more reliably the mother of James, leaving Cl(e)opas out of it. But then he reused the name later.

Luke for some reason doesn't want to give Peter (or even a "Simon"!) the theophany at Emmaus. I suspect this means that originally (in the theophany in the original source) there was either no Simon involved at all, or there was, but Luke knew it wasn't Simon Peter. (Note that in John, it's Mary who gets the theophany!) Luke (like most if not all the canonical gospel writers) is trying to clean things up.

This does not quite clear up the question of who said that Jesus had appeared to Simon. But that is a separate issue from the question of Clopas.
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Old 11-19-2007, 07:18 PM   #78
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And you notice how the narrative is dealt with in 24:13-14. It shifts the reader's focus away from the tomb, idou ("behold" -- what's the purpose of that?)...The narrative has the clear aim of filling in the temporal gap, so that they two could confirm that Jesus had indeed risen.
Yes, Luke is proving that Jesus really did rise. But that doesn't necessarily mean he is ignoring the priority of a "Simon." Now, it could be that Luke thinks one of the two travelers was named Simon. But then your proposal has its own problems--why wouldn't Luke name Simon, instead of Clopas? If Simon was the other traveler, why did Luke leave him unnamed until the annoucement to the other disciples? Why would Simon's name take priority over that of Cleopas?

Remember also--in favor of the canonical reading--that Luke is trying to synthesize sources. He might have had a source in which two disciples encouter Jesus, and he might have known that Jesus appeared first to a "Simon" (perhaps Cephas, perhaps Peter), without having a specific story about it. He didn't want to eliminate either claim, so he just engineered them both into the same narrative. The appearance to Simon happens off-stage, because...Luke didn't have an actual story for it! He just knew about it. (Of course, this also assumes Luke knows that Simon is also either Cephas or Peter...which may not be true.)

You could try to argue that there was an original in which one of the travelers was identified as Simon, but...were is the textual support for this?

Or (and this is an interesting idea IMO) did Luke know, or assume his readers knew...that Clopas was Simon?

(BTW I'm not sure that Origen's testimony is of any value here--it just means there was at least one version in which the two travelers announce that Jesus appeared to Simon--but we knew that already, from Bezae. It doesn't tell us which version has priority.)
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Old 11-19-2007, 07:31 PM   #79
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And you notice how the narrative is dealt with in 24:13-14. It shifts the reader's focus away from the tomb, idou ("behold" -- what's the purpose of that?)...The narrative has the clear aim of filling in the temporal gap, so that they two could confirm that Jesus had indeed risen.
Yes, Luke is proving that Jesus really did rise. But that doesn't necessarily mean he is ignoring the priority of a "Simon." Now, it could be that Luke thinks one of the two travelers was named Simon. But then your proposal has its own problems--why wouldn't Luke name Simon, instead of Clopas? If Simon was the other traveler, why did Luke leave him unnamed until the annoucement to the other disciples? Why would Simon's name take priority over that of Cleopas?
As I have already pointed out in this thread, that there seems to be a confusion between the narrator (who refers to Clephas in 24:18) and the speaker who refers to Simon in 24:34.

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Remember also--in favor of the canonical reading--that Luke is trying to synthesize sources. He might have had a source in which two disciples encouter Jesus, and he might have known that Jesus appeared first to a "Simon" (perhaps Cephas, perhaps Peter), without having a specific story about it. He didn't want to eliminate either claim, so he just engineered them both into the same narrative. The appearance to Simon happens off-stage, because...Luke didn't have an actual story for it! He just knew about it. (Of course, this also assumes Luke knows that Simon is also either Cephas or Peter...which may not be true.)
This is merely you trying to guess what the writer is doing to suit an a priori analysis. I started off trying to understand how the narrative worked. The best that has been suggested is that it doesn't, because it doesn't include the first sighting of the risen Jesus, but never mind.

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You could try to argue that there was an original in which one of the travelers was identified as Simon, but...were is the textual support for this?
Working from Codex Bezae, 24:34.

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Or (and this is an interesting idea IMO) did Luke know, or assume his readers knew...that Clopas was Simon?
I have no direct interest in Cleopas. It seems to me that those who have are merely indulging in the already mentioned confusion.

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(BTW I'm not sure that Origen's testimony is of any value here--it just means there was at least one version in which the two travelers announce that Jesus appeared to Simon--but we knew that already, from Bezae. It doesn't tell us which version has priority.)
And I didn't mention Origen either.


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Old 11-19-2007, 08:23 PM   #80
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As I have already pointed out in this thread, that there seems to be a confusion between the narrator (who refers to Clephas in 24:18) and the speaker who refers to Simon in 24:34.
Are you suggesting Luke (aka "the author of the gospel") is recording verbatim a story he got from elsewhere? Even if he is, why would the two from Emmaus make the claim that Jesus appeared to Simon? The larger question is, whoever first wrote the story of Emmaus down, why didn't they identify Simon if it culminated in an announcement that Jesus had appeared to Simon?

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This is merely you trying to guess what the writer is doing to suit an a priori analysis.
No, I am doing the same thing you are doing. There is an a priori question: is the canonical reading better, or the Bezae reading? But that question can't be answered a priori (probably), so we need to compare the evidence for both, by comparing the two different readings and seeing which are more logical. The canonical reading has the problem that Jesus appears to Simon off-stage. But my answer to that is that Luke knew about the priority of a Simon appearance (if we assume that Simon is either Cephas or Peter or both) but had no story about it (which we don't, besides 1 Corinthians--but at least we have that!). The Bezae reading has the problem that if Cl(e)op(h)as and his companion claim that Jesus appeared to Simon, then that is a non-sequitur. You seem to have no answer to that, but I could be wrong.

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Working from Codex Bezae, 24:34.
No, Codex Bezae identifies neither of them as Simon. There is an implied suggestion that one of them was Simon--because otherwise, it is a non-sequitur--but if one of them really was Simon, then why doesn't Bezae identify him directly?

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I have no direct interest in Cleopas. It seems to me that those who have are merely indulging in the already mentioned confusion.
Yes, that comment was really directed at Ben, but I should point out that if Simon is Clopas, then that solves your problem--that Simon is not identified directly.

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And I didn't mention Origen either.
Yes, that was just an aside. Not directed at you.
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