EarlDoherty

This will be the second excerpt from my response to Chris Zeichman’s critique, “Fear and Loathing in a Lost Gospel: Earl Doherty and the Case of Q”. For the sake of completeness on this new thread, I will begin by repeating the first excerpt which I posted a couple of days ago on the thread “Review of E. P. Sanders’ The Historical Figure of Jesus”. (As I said in my last posting on the latter thread, advocates of the HJ position too often come here to defend their views/faith, but then fail to respond to major arguments offered (offsite) by MJ-ers like myself. This thread may help correct that.)

My purpose here and in the article as a whole is not only to demonstrate the many problems in Zeichman’s critique, but to give some idea of the aspects of Q that are sometimes overlooked and which give support to my claim that no historical Jesus lies at the root of that document and community.

My second excerpt concerns the root community that produced the formative stage of the Q document:

I might note that many of the observations I make in this article as a whole serve to further support the very existence of a Q. There are subtleties and complexities to be discovered in the reconstructed Q document which speak to an evolution and derivation of this content found in Matthew and Luke which are almost impossible to understand in the alternate context put forward by anti-Qers, that Matthew essentially came up with all this material himself, and Luke simply copied it from him. I’ll try to include examples of that in future postings.

Fear and Loathing of Doherty's Use of Q: A Response to Chris Zeichman's "Fear and Loathing in a Lost Gospel: Earl Doherty and the Case of Q."

All the best,
Earl Doherty

Zeichman

Since I finished classes and graduation looms nigh, I've started a rejoinder to the rebuttal. Hopefully it will be in shape for a final draft in about a month. Without getting into specifics at this point, I seem to have been the subject of a great deal of misinterpretation, too. Just addressing the points that are made in this thread:

Your first point is a good observation, but my point is that it creates a somewhat incoherent Q3. What I have done is interpret it on your terms, and note that it does not appear to be especially internally consistent in its brevity. However, the second of the two is very problematic. The talk about Q1 not being people is something of a fallacious shift of emphasis: I argued against the idea that "The Q1 people were Cynic," but you respond that you only claim that "The Q1 people were Cynic." My criticisms stand: all one must do is go into Word, hit Control-H type "Q1 people" and then type "pre-Q1 source" and it is still relevant. I'm also curious as to how you have identified the Cynic character of a source that is never defined, nor the extent given. This vagueness renders your thoughts on the pre-Q1 source to be both unverifiable and unfalsifiable.

Also, I never objected to the portrayal of Jesus as recalling the literary figure of the Cynic. That would be silly, since you don't find a Jesus at all behind Q(1), so I'm not sure what your point with that was, unless it was more directly aimed against opponents of the "traditional" Cynic hypothesis (I never thought I would ever use that phrase). One last thing, it seems that you have set up a false dichotomy between "Cynic-like historical Jesus" and "Cynic pre-Q1 source," ignoring all other, including far more plausible, possibilities such as the scribal hypothesis.

While I'm at it, I'm hoping you could clarify a few things that I think I understand, but am not sure I do perfectly. Naturally, I think we would both like to avoid straw men if possible.
* Do you identify your method/criteria as different from Kloppenborg's for the division of Q's layers? If so, how? I currently understand that you like his methods but are disagreeing with his conclusions.
* The argument for why Q 7:18-35 is in Q3 is implicit and I would like to know what it is. I'm assuming it's related to the composite nature of the saying and the parallel in Thomas (otherwise, why mention it?), but this is not explicitly stated.

The draft is at about 11,000 words right now and I'm only about a quarter of the way through, so I've got more to say when the time comes. In the meantime, I'm losing access to a delightful library and an endlessly helpful interlibrary loan staff in a few days, so I need to hurry and check some books out. Additionally, what does the pigeon-holing of my views as "orthodox" accomplish? I'm quite open to "radical" hypotheses, if supported by evidence and well-argued methodology. I'm sure I have more "radical" books about Jesus than any of my professors do, even though a handful of my professors taught Leif Vaage back in his Lutheran Church - Missouri Synod days. You have no idea what I think about the historical Jesus, the reliability of the gospel tradition, my religious views, etc. I have only tried to show that there are considerable problems with the argumentation of the Jesus Puzzle and other writings by Doherty that are not the case for "mainstream" scholarship. Binary designations of "radical" and "orthodox" are not useful because they mean something different to everyone. One might label Doherty an "orthodox" academic because he uses the traditional model of Christianity and related groups as a religious phenomenon, thinking in an older paradigm. I am all for the free expression of ideas, and for questioning the status quo as long as it is done responsibly. If it means that there was no historical Jesus, so be it. As it stands, the evidence and arguments are far from convincing to me.

Regards,
Chris Zeichman

youngalexander

Crikey, and I thort QM was arcane!

Ted Hoffman

I prefer Ctrl+F myself. Zeichman is arguing that his contention was about Q1 people being Cynic and he objects to Doherty's emphasis being on Q1 referring to people.

Ben C Smith

As for what is typical of Q3, Doherty has started his quotation of Zeichman one sentence too late. Here is the fuller quote (emphasis mine):

[Doherty] offers no reason for believing specifically that the Q3 editor was the one who formed this dialogue unit. The scripture cited in these verses is not from the Septuagint, which one would expect if this were the case. The exegesis of Isaiah here is not typical of what is found in Q3; here scripture functions predictively, as opposed to the “anxiety regarding the enduring validity of the Law” in Q3. Similarly, the understanding of Jesus’ miracles differs from that of Q3 where they function christologically, a contrast from the “event of the kingdom” understanding found elsewhere in the synoptic sayings source.

That is clearer, is it not? Chris is only indirectly giving his own analysis of Q3; what he is doing directly is challenging Earl to name his reason(s) for including the dialogue on John in Q3. I take those negative reasons that Chris lists as a way of eliminating options; Earl cannot have been thinking of those reasons, since they would not make for a very consistent Q3. So what was his reason?

Ben.

Zeichman

Indeed, Ben. Selective quotations seem to be a rather large problem in his response. This may be one of the worst offenders:
"Lk/Q 6:20-23: Blessed are you the poor, for yours is the Kingdom of God; blessed are you who hunger now, for you will be satisfied...etc. This is supposedly a deliberate allusion to Isaiah 61:1-2: "...the Lord has sent me to bring good news to the humble, to bind up the broken-hearted...to give them garlands instead of ashes...""

Note that he has omitted one of the clearest allusions in Isaiah 61:2 and included 61:3 for no reason other than, presumably, to make my claim look contrived. This approaches intellectual dishonesty and is certainly a misrepresentation of what I said.

Likewise, I'm not sure why Doherty has played dumb with my discussion of JZ Smith, as his lengthy discussion of the book about a week before indicates that he clearly understands and can assess Smith's claims. Instead, he dismisses my comments as pretentious and elitist rather than trying to understand where I'm coming from.

Last for now, he is completely wrong about what Mack, Crossan, and Kloppenborg say about the stratigraphical location of Q 6:22-23 (and I have no idea why he believes that their methods are what he claims they were). Only 6:23c is placed in Q2 by Kloppenborg, Crossan holds out the possibility of a bit more of 6:22-23 being Q2, and Mack identifies it as Q1 in his discussion of Q, though not in his reconstruction (Lost Gospel, 112). Apparently Doherty has not read Kloppenborg or Crossan very well either, as he claims that they have never argued for any Q2 materials being earlier tradition-historically than Q1 materials. The VERY FIRST PERICOPE Kloppenborg discusses in Formation is argued to be authentic, and Crossan argues for the authenticity of a large amount of material relating to the Baptist in the Historical Jesus. Mack implicitly does so as well with Q 7:33-35. Since they all believe that some Q1 material is inauthentic and community/author creations, this would mean that Doherty is flat out wrong. If he's going to cherry-pick established scholars, it would be to his own benefit to make sure they claim what he wants them to, first.

EarlDoherty

I have looked at both my article and my posting and cannot understand why you don't grasp what I am saying. When I say that there were "no Q1 people" I think I make it clear that I mean "there were no Q1 people as opposed to Q2 people," that Q1 represents a group of people who came earlier and were of a different outlook from those who adopted the beliefs and activities represented by the Q2 material. My main purpose here is to discourage the thought that the Q1 sayings represent a mindset (tolerant, wisdom-oriented, etc.) at the beginning of the Q movement which only later evolved into the adoption of apocalyptic expectations and an intolerant and vindictive attitude toward the rest of society. Scholars who accept the Kloppenborg stratification often seem to query how the Q movement could first have lived and thought according to the Q1 ethos and then later (perhaps reacting to society's failure to respond to them) adopt the ethos found in Q2. My solution is to identify the "Q1 material" as an essentially foreign source (ultimately Cynic) by a group which from the beginning had apocalyptic expectations and were quite prepared to be intolerant of society's lack of response to their message. It's just that the Q2 material itself took time to formulate and be rendered in written form and get added to the existing record of Q1 material.

This solution resolves the glaring contradiction (when trying to see at least some elements of both Q1 and Q2 going back to an historical founder) between the two types of outlook as being the product of one man, or reflecting the outlook of the community as a whole, since in spirit they are in so many ways incompatible.

I stated why I included the Dialogue in Q3 (or more specifically, the 'redaction' of this pericope, since elements of it may have existed earlier): because it is among those pericopes which clearly introduce an historical founder Jesus. You would probably like to challenge this as "circular" or whatever, but it is no less legitimate a basis than Kloppenborg himself 'defining' his Q3 (a single pericope) by his own chosen internal markers, such as his claim that we see here a new 'biographical' trend for the Jesus figure. Since my overall analysis of Q focuses on a demonstrable pattern of evolution which involves an increasing development of the presence of a founder Jesus, it becomes part of that demonstration that the latest stage of Q (Q3, if you like) is taken up by those pericopes which contain him in the clearest fashion: ergo, the Dialogue is to be included, according to my paradigm, within that latest stage.

I was not aware of doing any such thing. I consider verse 3 to be on a par with verses 1 and 2, and only omitted the latter for brevity's sake. If I wrote 1-2, it should have been 1-3. You misunderstood my statement. The key word was "deliberate". I argued against your claim that the beatitudes were deliberately designed to allude to the Isaiah verses as though they reflected a necessary parallel in the Q mind, and could consequently provide an example of one of N. T. Wright's missing Jewish elements.

On the question of Kloppenborg and Crossan arguing for tradition-historical veracity for the opening Q pericope on John the Baptist's preaching, I'll have to take a closer look at exactly what they say. I can't believe Kloppenborg considers the actual content of those pericopes (other than the simple fact of John the Baptist preaching) to be authentic, particularly the 3:16-17 quote. In fact, I argue extensively against the authenticity of that particular preaching content in both my book and my recent article. I would ask Zeichman to be specific in his rejoinder about what those scholars consider authentic in those opening Q verses before I respond to this.

All the best,
Earl Doherty

EarlDoherty

Here is the passage from my article relating to the alleged allusion in Q to Isaiah 61:1-2. I see that Zeichman did refer specifically to verses 1 and 2, so I am not quite sure why I chose to quote verse 3 instead, though as I said above, I consider them to be more or less on a par. There was no devious intention here, and I am sorry if I created confusion.

Earl Doherty

Ben C Smith

Yes, probably, but that is not really the point here, except insofar as the perceived circularity would prompt Zeichman to find a noncircular reason for placing that pericope in Q3, and he could find none.

This only goes to show that his potential reasons for including this pericope in Q3, each of them negated by a potential tension with what we find in the temptation pericope, were not exactly his doing; they were hypothetical. The real point is that he could not find any nonincestuous reason on your part for the change. So he listed potential nonincestuous reasons in order to show that the ones he was listing did not work. You did not seem to pick up on his argument at this point, treating his list of reasons as an actual positive argument (which it could be turned into) rather than as a challenge to your own methodology.

Notice the word markers, plural. There is much, much more than a single marker in Kloppenborg; indeed, independent vectors all pointing the same way is one of the hallmarks of his method (and the potential lack of independence among these vectors one of the potential points of criticism of his thesis; see, for example, the first question posed by S. C. Carlson).

Here is how Arnal summarizes Kloppenborg on the temptation unit (and keep in mind that I myself am something of a Q skeptic, so this all goes strictly to methodology for me; bracketed letters are my own):

Kloppenborg sees the Temptation narrative as essentially unique in Q. All of the other material whose original order in Q can be discerned and is therefore amenable to redactional analysis fits fairly easily into one of the two major redactional groupings he finds in Q: either the inversionary wisdom stuff, or the polemical-deuteronomistic stuff. The Temptation narrative [A] does not appear to serve either interest. Moreover, it stands on its own in a way much other the other material does not: [B] it essentially makes its point on its own, without meaningfully standing in thematic juxtaposition with the surrounding material. Even more strikingly, [C] in terms of form it is unique in Q, standing as the only true narrative in the document (7:1-10 and 11:14 are narratival, but still conclude with a pithy saying and so are fairly typical of the apophthegmatic form of the rest of Q2). Other distinctive features: [D] mythic motif; [E] explicit biblical quotations (only elsewhere at 7:27); [F] title "son of God" (only "son" at 10:22); [G] different understanding of miracles (here they are deeds of Jesus rather than events of the kingdom); [H] characterization of devil as "diabolos." These lead him to the conclusion that the story is late interpolation to Q.

I count 8 different reasons for assigning this pericope neither to Q1 nor to Q2. How many reasons have you given for assigning the dialogue to Q3? Is it really only the one reason, the very indicator that has to be true if your thesis is to stand?

Ben.

Zeichman

Regarding the argument about Isaiah 61:1-2 addressed therein, I was arguing against the overstatement that Q1 is "striking NON-Jewish." Alluding to verses from the Hebrew Bible (regardless of content), mentioning Solomon, and using Aramaic terms are all what one would expect of a Jewish group, or at least one that is not "strikingly" otherwise. I'm curious if Doherty would be skeptical of the Cynic nature of Q if pre-Q1 materials mentioned Diogenes, used the word kunikos a few times, was completely in Greek, and then label it "strikingly NON-Cynic." I can't help but think that there is a double-standard. And I'm clueless as to the relevance of the originality and audience of Q 6:20-23.


This is precisely my point. Whether or not there was a "Q1 people" my arguments still can be applied to your pre-Q1 source. The word "people" was not of significance to much (if any) of what I said, if I recall correctly. I misinterpreted your stance in the original article, but my arguments are still relevant.

I'm going to take this to mean that you claim to use the same method as Kloppenborg. The fact is, nothing was ever explicitly argued for the late stratigraphical location of this verse. (p. 171) Noting the "composite nature" has nothing at all to do with stratigraphical location, nor does a parallel in Thomas. I assumed that these latter reasons were your basis and that their mention was not irrelevant. So far, I have no reason to think otherwise. Ben has also made important notes about Q3 that are not to be overlooked.

Kloppenborg (Formation, 104) argues for the authenticity of erchomenos via the Baptist, I'm not sure how many more Q2 sayings he does this for. I'm a bit crunched for time on things like this, but I'll see if there are more as soon as possible. If you want to know what Crossan takes to be authentic (for him, 51 sayings are securely in Q2, twenty are authentic, about 39%, this would be higher if one counts 1or2Q material or 1Q?, as of The Historical Jesus, 434-442). Specific pericopes are numerously discussed, but his talk about John the Baptist involves a few Q2 sayings: 332-238. I don't have the time (last undgraduate exam ever, tomorrow morning) to list every page that argues for authentic Q2 sayings, but I'll list his authentic complexes, and one can check in the respective index for page numbers: 8, 23, 31, 36, 40, 48, 51, 53, 57, 74, 84, 85, 95, 102, 115, 121, 124, 137, 150, and 178. (119 is +/- and I did not include it)
I'm not saying that Kloppenborg or Crossan were convincing, or even that it was relevant for the former. Only that they argued it.