ichabod crane

Granted! My suggestion at this stage is only a very, very speculative hypothesis and nothing more. It would require a lot more research to argue for it reasonably. But I'm still tossing around ideas on the subject and I don't have enough knowledge yet to make strong statements about the subject. I'm just trying to find a way to see how the data conforms to the Jesus Myth theory.

Yes, but if you accept that there is no record of Jesus in Jewish writings until the second century (which is a debate in itself), then it seems reasonable to think of the historicization as coming before the rejection by the Jews. In other words, first the Jesus Myth, then some Gentile followers of the sect begin to historicize; initially this historicization is ignored by the Jews who are not interested in Gentile religions, but as the Christians become more assertive about the reality of a Jewish Jesus the Jews start to get upset (say second century). This allows time for Luke prior to Matthew.

Not necessarily where there were no Jews, but where the controversy between Jews and Christians had not reached yet - in other words, where the Jews were still just ignoring this new sect.

Amaleq13

This seems to me to be consistent with Mark which contains depictions of favorable reactions to Jesus by certain Pharisees. Maccoby points these out in his argument for Jesus as coming from within the Pharisee sect.

yalla

I read Mike Goulder's book "Lection and Midrash in Matthew" [I think that is the title] some time ago.From my [usually faulty] memory he dates Matthew before Luke partly on the basis of literary style .He says that authors have distinctive literary styles .Distinctive to Matthew ,but consistent with a Jewish background,is the use of rustic imagery and metaphors eg. "foxes have holes " ,"birds in trees"....This he contrasts to Luke's Hellenistic urban literary style.Within the body of material normally labelled "Q" there are examples that he attributes ,on stylistic grounds,to Matthew.There are similar examples of Matthew's style in the rest of Matthew's gospel ,not surprisingly.But in the "non-Q" material of Luke similar examples of rustic imagery a la Matthew do not occur.For Goulder this suggests that the "Matthewan" examples in Q originated in Matthew not from the hypothetical Q.They got there because they were copied by Luke.I wrote this from memory so I hope I'm not misrepresenting Goulder.Anyway I find it persuasive that Matthew was written befor Luke and that the presence of common material is due to Luke's copying of Matthew not their mutual copying of Q.

Toto

Michael Goulder, "Midrash and Lection in Matthew", SPCK, London, UK (1974) out of print, but discussed here.

Yuri Kuchinsky

YURI:
And I don't think that the idea that Luke usually features the more original wording is wrong necessarily. Goodacre is in the minority here -- by a long shot.

Sure, Vork, the last edition can be that late.

But you've got a problem here. Marcion attests Lk very early for us.

Yes, but you're in a very small minority here, along with Goodacre.

[Snip Goodacre's use of cinema, and "the Return of the King" about which I know very little]

Is this supposed to be an apologetic myth? The apologetic myth is Luke the disciple of Paul.

This may have provided a motivation for the Q humbug. But Lk is not directly related.

I may even grant you some of these points, but you'll still need some hard evidence to argue that Lk is late. Even if you have found some apologetic motivations for portraying Lk as early, this'll still not make a solid argument for it being late...

And also I'd like to second Vinnie on some of the things he said in this thread. The actual textual and literary evidence of the gospels indicates that they are interrelated in very complex ways. So, in light of this complexity (sometimes even an overwhelming complexity) it's certainly curious that the scholars have such a pronounced preference for the reductionist and even simplistic theories, such as the mainstream 2SH, or Farrer, or Griesbach...

All the best,

Yuri

mrmoderate

A few things that should be considered are;

* Luke is the only non-Jewish gospel writer.
* Luke did not know Jesus personally.
* Luke was writing more as a journalist gathering information.

Luke gathered information for his gospel from first hand sources which would account for similarities with other gospels. Not being Jewish, Luke would have thought of some things in a different manner than the other, Jewish gospel writers.

Amaleq13

On what evidence do you base this conclusion?

What evidence exists to indicate that any of the authors of the Gospels knew Jesus personally?