gstafleu

Nah, I don't have to defend Kloppenborg, I think the OP sort of assumes him as an axiom: given Q as we know it, does it bear on historicity. AFAIK Q2 and Q3 don't add much in the way of a person either, but maybe someone who really knows can elucidate.

Gerard

Peter Kirby

The OP presumes to talk about Q, not "Kloppenborg's Q." Indeed, would it not be relevant to talk about "Doherty's Q"--as Doherty has his own stratification theory distinct from Kloppenborg's? Or perhaps the non-stratified Q's as well?

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Peter Kirby

gstafleu

The first question is: does any of Q contain any personal info about J. If not, if say all of it is sayings of one kind or another, then stratification doesn't matter for this discussion. Only if there is personal info somewhere does it become important whether it was in a later layer.

Gerard Stafleu

Doug Shaver

Yes, it can be used that way, but that is not why it was postulated. It was postulated to account for a certain pattern of similarities and differences among the synoptic gospels. That pattern demanded an explanation apart from any considerations of when the gospels were written relative to a historic Jesus or whether there even was a historical Jesus.

If that were so, mythicists would have to deny Q. They don't. Doherty, for one, accepts the scholarly consensus on Q and works it effortlessly into his account of how the gospels got written.

Yes, if you assume a historical Jesus, then Q is our earliest contact with him. But that does not make Q evidence for a real Jesus, nor does it make a real Jesus necessary to account for Q.

Mack makes those assumptions. I don't, but I still don't have a problem with Q.

No, it is not.
With or without Q, the assertion is unevidenced.

Malachi151

According to this Q is not a source for Mark, so... that would seem to significantly undermine any argument about Q and HJ, since Mark would still be seen as being written first, and independent of it, no?

http://catholic-resources.org/Bible/...ic_Problem.htm

Peter Kirby

I don't know.

Perhaps you can interact with my arguments about Q and JM?

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Peter Kirby

yalla

That's cute Peter.

Who is biased here?

Are you claiming that Q is not an hypothesis?
That an HJ is an undisputed fact?

Do you see why I "jabber jaw" it?

Should I describe [hypothetical-there it is again] Q as a undisputed fact or as one hypothesis that has been put forward to explain something?

I know it is awkward to constantly refer to things that are hypothetical and alleged as hypothetical and alleged.
It grates as I write it and you read it.
But if we dont do that then we are being biased in not recognising them as such and consequently giving them a validity that is not necessarily appropriate.
And then they gather juggernaut momentum and are not subject to analysis.
Sort of like putting "Mark" et al as such instead of Mark as if an accepted absolute fact that that name is indisputably attached to that gospel.
Accuracy in description vying against accepted apologetic tradition.

To simplify my original post for you.

Mack states there is no story of JC before Mark. p.151
Hence no HJ.
He uses Q to connect JC to Mark. p47
Hence an HJ.
Without Q there is no such connection.
Q is very convenient for Mack.

Remove it from his argument and see what is left.

And remember:
Q is only a hypothesis
JC is only alleged to be historical

Damn I used the forbidden words again!

Let us not presume by the language we use those things we are trying to detirmine.

Otherwise we could be accused of being biased.
cheers
yalla

Peter Kirby

Yalla, you cannot save bad writing with more of it. Your writing is a reflection of the way you think, and the way you think is dominated by the "alleged" nature of the subject. So much so, that it interferes with a clear exposition of the subject. It is this cloudiness of exposition that I noticed above.

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Peter Kirby

Zeichman

Uh... if you're reading Mack's work as polemic against the Jesus Myth, you're wrong. If I'm not wrong, Mack never commits anything specificly going back to the Historical Jesus in that work, nor in his "Who Wrote the New Testament?" I know of no discussion of the Historical Jesus aside from his book on the Gospel of Mark.

Additionally, I don't know of him ever connecting Jesus to Mark via Q. From what I recall, he goes as far as to say that Mark preservation of Q material is due to its correlation with Mark's own theology, having no interest in the HJ.

yalla

Peter,
I can readily admit that my expression is not as clear as I would like.
"Bad writing" if you wish.
[I wish I was as eloquent as many here but I'm not, I just try to get things right.]
But, at least in this instance it is not biased.
Q IS hypothetical.
And therefore should be referred to as such.
HJ IS hypothetical and should be referred to as such.

I pointed out that Mack, a major scholar, uses Q to establish a link with an HJ without giving evidence for either.
Just presumption.

I submit the qualifying words I used should be inserted to avoid bias.
To not do so would be biased.

Yep it's jabber jaw and one of the reasons it grates [other than my poor expression] is that we are used to considering these issues in the framework of accepted apologetic convention.
And to put in those words which are required in the interests of objectivity is discordant with the paradigm in which we normally operate.

Try an experiment to give a disconnect with that paradigm.
Every time you go to write 'gospel of mark' or something similar....don't.
Write something objective that does not presume a fellow called Mark actually wrote that gospel.
Do the same for all the other examples that are rife in biblical criticiam.
Deliberately write something that does not presume the nearly 2000 year old convention of Christian writing is actually true.
Just the proces of having to think about that is to see how much bias is contained in the language we matter of factly use all the time here.

See how discordant it is in your thinking and writing.
How it 'clunks' in your mind to do it and read it.
How much easier it is to go with the accepted version.

And hence to narrow the debate to that version.

Am I getting my point across now?
cheers
yalla