spin

What would ever make one think of two events in this situation without two stories from two apparently unrelated sources?

Rubbish. He assumes the priority of Nazareth without any justification whatsoever. He then only assumes two possibilities as to why both Matthew and Luke each use the form "Nazara" of which he leans towards his preference. And try this classic: "The sermon is full of Lucan themes, and Luke will have written his familiar Ναζαρεθ; the N-A text is a later assimilation to Mat. 4:13." (p.370) He assumes that the birth narrative's Ναζαρεθ reflects the single writer's intentions and assumes an assimilation. He's done more wrong than right procedure-wise.

The heart of his Matthean logic is this:

"This seems to answer several difficulties satisfactorily. We have an explanation for Matthew’s writing Ναζαρα at 2:23: it was to ease his problem with Jg. 13."

Pure unadulterated conjecture.

The only thing useful to come out of the article is the establishment of Ναζαρα at Mt 2:23 and thus a Matthean trend with 4:13. He doesn't learn anything useful from that trend. He doesn't seem to realize that Mt 2:23 was trying to justify the origin of the then tradition that Jesus was from Nazara. He has the writer concocting a prophecy for Nazareth then needing to fix Nazareth as well.

Yup.

But it seems you needed a longer version.

Text jockeys will not seem to grasp the idea that there are traditions behind texts. Did Epiphanius accidentally invent Ebion's hometown? Did Jerome invent the story that Ebion lost a debate with John the apostle? Or was there a growing tradition that each tapped into at different stages?


spin

Rick Sumner

The same thing that makes us think of it in Matthew. He's clearly added to his Markan source. Unless we assume that we somehow have a gift for discerning this type of thing that Luke could not possibly have possessed, any argument that begins with us recognizing the break has to include the possibility that Luke recognized the break.

Putting aside the speculative nature of your hypothesis.

I'd agree that the connection with Judges is weak. But he doesn't need it to make his case here. The 2:23-4:13 works fine on its own. We can see why we have nazaraios in Matthew.

But if Luke didn't know Matthew, we're left the problem of why we have nazaraios in Q. A problem you still haven't addressed. The justification in 2:23 doesn't appear in Luke. Even if you're right about the tradition, Luke hasn't heard of it, so--in the Lukan text--what he's made is a mistake.

So if Luke didn't get it from Matthew, where did he get it from, and how did it get there?

The problem isn't simply the tradition behind the text. It's a specific word, easily explained as a Matthean invention, far more difficult to explain outside of that.

Besides which, weren't you just preaching to me the need for "evidence?" Text jockeys get that they have that. Once you start addressing the tradition underlying it (and by extensions the complexity of thought processes which we'll never fully understand) all you're doing is idly speculating.

In other words, the only thing that makes your suggestion better than Goulder's is your say-so.

You criticize speculation and assessments of plausibility with one breath, and then condemn a lack of imagination with the next. I'm sure you have a nice excuse for why it's different here.

How convenient.

Solo

Why would that be incredible ? It's highly probable once you consider the verses that evidently figured as inspiration for Luke's commission of the 70:

Luke has by all appearances carved out the commissioning of the seventy (-two ?) out of Matthew's prayer for labourers in the Lord's harvest.

Luke would first reproduce Mark's sending out of the 12, and then add a second commission to dramatize the desire for growth of the movement, and to bolster numerically the apostolic authorities crowding Jesus. Note that Mark's judgment threat to non-believers (6:11), was saved by Luke for the larger commission (10:12).

Jiri

spin

Here's part of the sending out of the disciples/apostles:

	Matthew 10:9-12	Mk 6:8-10	Lk 9:3-4	Lk 10:4-5
1.		He charged them to take nothing for their journey except a staff	And he said to them, "Take nothing for your journey, no staff
2.	(no bag, see #4)	no bread, no bag	nor bag, nor bread	(no bag, see #4)
3.	Take no gold, nor silver, nor copper in your belts	no money in their belts	nor money	Carry no purse
4.	no bag for your journey, (see #2)			no bag,
5.	nor two tunics, (see #7)
6.	nor sandals	but to wear sandals		no sandals
7.		and not put on two tunics	and do not have two tunics
8.	nor a staff (see #1)
9.				and salute no one on the road
10.	And whatever town or village you enter, find out who is worthy in it			(see Lk 10:8)
11.	(see #13)	And he said to them, "Where you enter a house,	And whatever house you enter	Whatever house you enter
12.	and stay with him until you depart	stay there until you leave the place	stay there, and from there depart
13.	As you enter the house, salute it			first say, "Peace be to this house"

Do we really want people to believe that the Lucan writer picked phrases for one story, then later in the story went back and did the same?


spin

spin

The logic here escapes me. Matthew has material from Mark and elsewhere. Luke has two different stories one reflecting Mark and one reflecting the same material that Matthew got elsewhere. I have no difficulty understanding a conflation in Matthew of two sources. But the opposite, the picking out two stories from one is highly improbable. Two separate sources could easily inspire two different stories in Luke and a conflation in Matthew. The alternative is an unreasonable unraveling of one story into two without any physical stimulus for there being two stories.

As you've made your bed here, I don't think you can say anything else about this that will be of interest, so I've probably leave it to others to see what you have to say.

We don't have "nazaraios in Matthew." We have nazwraios in Matthew. It would have been much simpler had there been ναζαρηνος in Matthew, ie coming from the Marcan source, but the Matthean text has lost all connections with the earleir ναζαρηνος. Goulder is oblivious to that loss.

I wish you would listen. Tradition exists behind these texts. They were not created in vacuums. Nazara came from tradition, as two separate uses of the term show. It is downright silly to eke a one word convergence for Q from Nazara.

You haven't been following what I've said on Nazara on this forum.

This "Luke hasn't heard of it" doesn't make sense. Nazara is in the tradition, not Matthew's specific misuse of Judges.

It was in circulation, in circulation obviously before the existence of the Greek form ναζαρεθ. Otherwise it would not have been necessary.

Again, Nazara had entered tradition, as its appearance in two separate contexts from two separate sources indicate.

Goulder can't successfully deal with Nazara. That's why he falls back and mere assumptions. As I've said on this forum numerous times, Nazareth is not part of the synoptic tradition, as shown by the fact that not one reference to Nazareth is shared by any two synoptic gospels. It's all in "special" materials. Given that fact Goulder's assumption of Nazareth has no basis and we are deeper in it explaining Nazara. (Ding, dong.)

Text jockeys have a simplistic view of these texts. That is tradition as well.

When you've ignored what I've said about Goulder, your conclusions don't have any substance.

All you've done is said you won't think about the issues. I can understand that. I can't understand why you are bothering in this subject when you don't seem to want to do any analysis of your own. You are happy with things like Goulder "provides a fairly lengthy argument in favor of Matthean invention." But analysis? None.


spin

spin

Umm, Mt 9:37-9:38 leads straight into the mission.


spin

neilgodfrey

Can you elaborate - or point me to where this is discussed?

spin

I haven't touched Acts in a very long time. All is fuzzy memory. written sources were 1. an acts of apostles, 2. an acts of Paul, and 3. the "we" source. The first interpolations I referred to regard the first of these. There are summaries added that deal with the fellowship of the apostles and converts, eg 2:42-43/46-47a, 4:32-35, 5:12-16 (minus v.14, see next). Another layer of interpolations, spread further through the book, dealt with the increase in the numbers of believers, eg 2:47b, 4:4, 5:14, 9:42, 11:21, 24b. This comes from very old reading of scholarly analyses, so it should be available (I hope) in scholarly commentaries of Acts.


spin

spin

	Matthew 10:9-12	Mk 6:8-10	Lk 9:3-4	Lk 10:4-5
1.		He charged them to take nothing for their journey except a staff	And he said to them, "Take nothing for your journey, no staff
2.	(no bag, see #4)	no bread, no bag	nor bag, nor bread	(no bag, see #4)
3.	Take no gold, nor silver, nor copper in your belts	no money in their belts	nor money	Carry no purse
4.	no bag for your journey, (see #2)			no bag,
5.	nor two tunics, (see #7)
6.	nor sandals	but to wear sandals		no sandals
7.		and not put on two tunics	and do not have two tunics
8.	nor a staff (see #1)
9.				and salute no one on the road
10.	And whatever town or village you enter, find out who is worthy in it			(see Lk 10:8)
11.	(see #13)	And he said to them, "Where you enter a house,	And whatever house you enter	Whatever house you enter
12.	and stay with him until you depart	stay there until you leave the place	stay there, and from there depart
13.	As you enter the house, salute it			first say, "Peace be to this house"

I'm still wondering how the non-Qers can seriously deal with the two stories Luke has from this material. The only explanation I've heard is something that has no precedent in gospel construction: the unthreading of the Matthean version to supply a second mission narrative.


spin

angelo

Spin, if you ever write a book, would you be so kind as to PM me. I will be your first customer. I have bought Earl Doherty's The Jesus Puzzle and am really enjoying the read which I think is very close to the truth. But I tend to go with R.G. Price's book and ideas of Jesus, A Very Jewish Myth. Along with the mystery religions is what produced the whole N/T.
I would be very surprised if one day evidence is discovered that a historical Jesus really existed.