Vinnie

I would reccomend reading Meier (vII Marginal, pp. 336-348) who views these as creations of prophets consoling suffering Christians in the early church and Crossan (HJ, 243-247), who views them at least partly as early creations from the OT and also Sanders (HFJ, p. 179-180)) who views them as authentic for balance.

Now what I would be interested in seeing is a critique of Sander's argument which breaks the Matthean and Pauline saying into basically the same thing. I believe Meier argues largely or significantly from coherence that these sayings are inauthentic.

This could of course beg the question. Why wouldn't this secure tradition make the other traditions that Meier deems disagree with it incorrect? One would have to evaluate the power of his other reconstructions. For instance, his thoughts reconstructed from Jesus which do not cohere with this, are they first stratum like the saying in Paul? This is where the theoretical basing of one's methodology plays a crucial role. Going first stratum help helops alleviate this problem.

This tradition outlines one of the most difficult methodological problems with Jesus research! Thats why you need a good methodology

Vinnie

mike_decock

Except for the literalists, most HJ proponents here recognize that there is a certain amount of "mythologizing" of Jesus although they may differ on degree. I think you made that observation in another thread.

I define a mythicist as someone who believes there is no single historical figure who was later mythologized.

I'm not sure which of those categories your "composite" approach falls into.

-Mike...

mike_decock

Heya Mark!

Small world

PM or e-mail me.

-Mike...

rlogan

Well, examine Toto's point. this is again why the "composite" approach appeals to me.

It isn't a "second (third) coming" of Jesus. It is "The Kingdom of God is at Hand" message.

This theme did not begin with "Jesus". But it is a central idea of the Christ traditions and would have to be something that "Jesus said" whether he existed or not. Something "Paul the obscure" would carry on.

Mike - what Vinnie is describing is some excuse-making on their part as to why the "coming" is so tardy. That excuse is necessitated whether Jesus is real or not.

The fact that it is not Jesus' second (third) coming weakens the HJ position.

Magus55

How can Jesus be late when no one knows His return time? Those verses in the OP are not referring to the present, because while on Earth, Jesus didn't even know when He was returning.

Vorkosigan

Stratification can tell you what wasn't said, but it can't tell you what does go back to Jesus. Looking at Paul, you have the earliest claim that Jesus would come in the lifetime of those standing there. This is not attributed to Jesus (the NIV, as usual, translates a vague phrase by Paul into a more strongly historical one, see the YLT or ASV for different takes on the Greek) so we cannot have any idea, looking at Paul, whether it goes back to Jesus, since Paul does not attribute to him, and we know Paul never met him. Since the Gospels are fiction-constructions, we are stuck (yet again) with an unattributed saying that anyone for several reasons might have invented (more in a moment). Your stratifaction has helped clarify some of the redaction history of the saying, helpfully noting the expansion, but has done nothing that would help you decide whether the saying goes back to Jesus. Indeed, by locating the earliest appearance in Paul, and the likeness, you have uncovered possible evidence of dependence of one upon the other.

Like I said, when you arrive at the earliest, congrats, you've got the earliest. The underlying assumption that "early" and "authentic" are somehow related is complete bullshit. What you need is some kind of system that analyzes content....because, for one thing, you can't stratify without making decisions about content, and you can't make decisions about content without stratification (gulp). In other words, your methodology has a very serious problem -- the interplay of assumptions about dates, content historicity, and text relationships. They cannot be disentangled and presented in some kind of neat order....

Note that two key assumptions of yours is that the Pauline letters are authentic AND date from prior to 70. I do not agree with either of these. I am agnostic on whether anything in the Christian literature comes from before 70, except maybe portions of the Didache that Christians lifted from earlier documents, the Cynic sayings, and similar stuff that floated around in the culture at large.

As for why anyone might have invented the sayings about returning in the lifetime of those now standing, we must return to Loisy's (and others') suggestion of the educational function of Mark aimed at early believers. Here is Loisy's dissection of the function of Mark 9:

• With the confession of Peter (viii, 27-30) we enter on the second part of the Gospel catechesis, the cycle of the Last Supper, and encounter at the outset an almost certain antedating of an element fundamental in the eschatological catechesis, namely Peter's faith in Jesus-Messiah, in Jesus-Christ. No account need be taken of the preamble (viii, 27-28) which has already served to introduce the legend of John the Baptist (vi, 14-16). The essential element is the messianic confession of Simon: "Thou art the Christ." As in all similar cases, the imposition of silence on the disciples (viii, 30) is a sure sign that material of post-resurrection origin is being thrown back into the record of Jesus' ministry on earth. Whatever the historical preparation may have been for Peter's faith in Jesus as the Christ, his first affirmation of that faith was not made until, in his belief, Jesus was already risen as the Christ. That granted, we may be sure that the natural sequel, and probably the original sequel, to Peter's confession is to be found in the declaration of Jesus (ix, 1), with all restriction removed, "Those who are here shall see the coming of God's kingdom," intimating that the Great Event is at hand. Attached to this is the disciples' question about the preliminary coming of Elijah, with the answer given by Jesus (ix, 11-13): "Elijah indeed is already come, and they have done to him what they would, as it is written of him," to be understood of the ministry of John conceived as preliminary, not to the earthly ministry of Jesus, but to the advent of Jesus-Messiah in the Kingdom of God. The insertions in the text between these two eschatological utterances belong to the development of the Gospel catechesis. Let us now consider these in turn.

As Loisy again puts it so well:

• .... we are able to see that the Gospel editors proceeded in their work as if the sayings they utilized were teachings whose sense was not very clearly defined, and whose connections of time and place in the life of Jesus could be laid down at will, for the simple reason that nothing whatever was known about the matter. We have already remarked how they operated in the same way with the facts adorning their narratives. By these proceedings they were able to construct and fill out a legend, astonishingly poor in real memories; into the artless mosaic before us, whose incoherence is ill-disguised by the manifold devices of the editors to provide it with a containing frame.

Loisy on Mark

Since at least one function of Mark is to instruct and another to reassure, we can imagine what inserting Jesus' reassurance that all are saved into the text might do for listeners. As I believed Vinnie pointed out above.

Hope this helps, Mike.

Vorkosigan

mike_decock

I'm still a little fuzzy on this.

Is the mythist position that the parousia promised to "this generation" only the personal resurrection experiences of the early followers rather than some global event?

-Mike...

Vinnie

Agreed. That is why I have a number of positive criteria and a number of negative criteria and a range of values that apply to each tradition. This is why I do not treat each criteria separately (this has MA so its true). I look for overlapping historical criteria and also look at any indications from negative criteria. But if the negative criteria are all lacking and there are multiple positive criteria I have to move to historicity. I do not see how the theoretical basing of my method is flawed.

First off, Sanders does at least present an argument that this is a saying of Jesus. But I do agree there is a CF (creativity factor) present here. There are some plausible reasons for creation. The retention of the tradition served to show that it must have been done very early, however, since each stratum treats the core ideal the same.

I have not actually tried to demonstrate this goes back to Jesus. I quoted Sander's reconstruction.

I disagree. Theoretically a later tradition may be more reliable than an earlier one but I think there are good historical reasons why we should at least try to start with earlier material first. I also think there are good reasons for using any bits we find in the Pauline corpus.

Actually, only 7 of them.

[quote]I am agnostic on whether anything in the Christian literature comes from before 70, except maybe portions of the Didache that Christians lifted from earlier documents, the Cynic sayings, and similar stuff that floated around in the culture at large.[/uote]

Well, my method works from my stratification so you may not agree with my conclusions but is it because you disagree with my dating of sources or because you think my methodology is flawed?

I might have totally misinterpreted this (I have trouble reading Loisy's writing style for some reason!) but I have a problem with this. Why would Mark use a blatantly false prediction from Jesus? To use it to assure his readers? Its a rather strange way of reassuring them. Rather, the redacted tradition history that I showed demonstrates that Christians would find false statements or prophecies attributed to Jesus problematic rather than using them for reassurement.

The real question is, is this saying a false statement at the time of Mark's writing. As I noted, Mark appears to be the second stage whereas the saying reconstructed through comparing GMatt and ETh seems to be the first.

Now I make no judgment that this original saying goes back to Jesus at this time. This issue is very compelx as is evidenced by the three treatments I suggested for reading up above.

Vinnie

Vorkosigan

NO, you are usually reasonable in your interpretations...usually.

Thanks! I thought I was the only one. His style is very convoluted and full of unnecessary rhetorical flourishes.

But Vinnie, in 70, was it false? And would his hearers have interpreted it the way you do? Even today people quote this at each other to assure each other of Jesus' promise, overlooking its problems. Believers are not sharp-eyed critics of the ideas they are presented with, and converts are the worst, since so much of their motivation is social.

Not to believers, who hear things theologically and symbolically. Believers just don't ask whether something could have happened. They ask how it affects themselves. We relate the world to ourselves. Related facts in the world to each other is an affectation of the educated.

No, I don't think this began as a saying. Rather, it began life as a belief tenet among the post-70 proto-orthodox crowd that was getting resurrection appearances from Jesus. Putting it in the mouth of Jesus gave it spurious validity.

It wasn't you who argued that it might go back to Jesus, but Mike DeCock's OP pointed out the possibility. I think you've very admirably presented its redaction history and a possible set of relationships, but the kind of content analysis that might bear on historicity is lacking. The basic, fundamental problem is the fictional context of the gospels that makes everything so uncertain.

Vorkosigan

Vorkosigan

Well both, really. I hope to get a piece out on methodology soon (just got $300 dollars worth of books of Amazon and some promising stuff off the E-book site at our library.) More later. My Chair is calling....