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Old 09-29-2006, 07:00 AM   #1
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Default What does intracanonical mean?

I encountered the term "intracanonical gospels" for the first time last night while reading something by (or about . . . I don't now recall for sure which) Crossan, and I could not discern its precise meaning from the context. I tried some googling to no avail. Finally I looked it up in the Oxford English Dictionary, which informed me that it means "relating to what is included in the canon of Scripture."

OK. What I still don't know is: What is the difference between "intracanonical" and "canonical"? And specifically: Which gospels are intracanonical?
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Old 09-29-2006, 10:42 AM   #2
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Amazon lists "intracanonical gospels" as a "Statistically Improbably Phrase" occurring in Crossan and a few other writers:

Quote:
"intracanonical gospels" appears in these books:
...

15 references in The Birth of Christianity : Discovering What Happened in the Years Immediately After the Execution of Jesus by John Dominic Crossan (Author)

1. on Page 92:
"... and looks at how we can determine dependence or independence between two gospels. It also considers extracanonical as well as intracanonical gospels-that is, those outside as well as inside the official or canonical New Testament. ..."
2. on Page 101:
"... If you take the intracanonical gospels as four independent witnesses to the historical Jesus, you will act one way on that presupposition. If you take the ..."
3. on Page 109:
"... + 109 mean, for me at least, that it is somehow better or more normative than any one of the intracanonical gospels, which also contain early Jesus tradition and are also heavily redacted. It is simply there and must be investigated. ..."
4. on Page 110:
"... they contain the same content? Is there bias, on a more prosaic level, in never italicizing the titles for the intracanonical gospels- those of Matthew, ..."
5. on Page 111:
"... now the Q Gospel is starting to look a little like a Trojan horse, an extracanonical gospel hidden within two intracanonical gospels. ..."
6. on Page 114:
"... at least as a working hypothesis, the dependence ofJohn's passion account on Mark's. Hence my third major presupposition about the intracanonical gospels is that John is dependent on the synoptic gospels at least and especially for the passion narratives (here I agree ..."
7. on Page 115:
"... the intracanonical gospels have a certain plausibility, and Crossan is by no means the first or only scholar to advance them." He found ..."
8. on Page 117:
"... existed, been buried, to be but recently discovered.) Second, here is why I judge it to be independent of the intracanonical gospels (1985:35-37 = 1992:17-19). ..."
9. on Page 118:
"... of scholars who have seriously investigated the matter have been won over to the side of `Thomas' independence of the intracanonical Gospels, ..."
10. on Page 119:
"... chosen. Thus, for example, if there is some sort of indirect literary relationship between the Gospel of Peter and our intracanonical gospels, be it in one direction as source (Crossan 1988; 1995) or in the opposite direction as digest (Brown 1987; 1994) ..."
11. on Page 125:
"... There are no intracanonical gospels on scrolls in that list, however; there is, in fact, only one current example of such a case (#459, p22 ..."
12. on Page 126:
"... we now call intracanonical and extracanonical gospels. Up to the start of the third century, we have evidence for three intracanonical gospels: John (three cases), Matthew (two cases), and Luke (two cases). ..."
13. on Page 241:
"... the two gospels is in the formal structure of both documents. How are they organized and unified? While the four intracanonical gospels have narrative and biographical frameworks, ..."
14. on Page 482:
"... But the final source decision on the passion-resurrection story is the relationship of the extracanonical Gospel of Peter to the intracanonical gospels. ..."
15. on Page 484:
"... First, von Harnack concludes that the Gospel of Peter contains data from the intracanonical gospels, but it is unclear from his comments whether such data were obtained by direct literary borrowing, by indirect oral knowledge, ..."


9 references in The Historical Jesus: The Life of a Mediterranean Jewish Peasant by John Dominic Crossan (Author)

1. on Page 310:
"... retained, were being very carefully interpreted (Hull). A full proof of that assertion would demand wider studies on the four intracanonical Gospels than presently possible, but it is at least substantiated by the miracles under consideration. ..."
2. on Page 321:
"... willing to withdraw the proposal. But I am still quite completely convinced that the Egerton Gospel did not know the intracanonical Gospels. ..."
3. from Back Matter:
"... The collection is independent of the intracanonical Gospels (Davies; Crossan 1985; but esp. Patterson). Those twin layers are identified, but tentatively and experimentally, as follows: the earlier ..."
4. from Back Matter:
"... dated from the early second to the early third century, but the original composition, which is independent of all the intracanonical Gospels, could be as early as the fifties C. ..."
5. from Back Matter:
"... [Gos. Eg.]. There are no extant fragments, it is known only from six patristic citations, and is independent of the intracanonical Gospels. ..."
6. from Back Matter:
"... are created by expanding a collection of Jesus' sayings that is independent of the intracanonical Gospels. This source is still clearly distinguishable in Dial. Sav. 124.23-127.18; 131.19-132.15;137.3-147.22 (Pagels & Koester; Emmel et al. ..."
7. from Back Matter:
"... It is independent of the intracanonical Gospels (Koester 1957:4-23; 1982:2.287-292). 26. Epistle of Bamabas [Barn.]. Written toward the end of the first century C.E., it probes the ..."
8. from Back Matter:
"... They are independent of the intracanonical Gospels. (Koester 1957:24-61; 1982:2.279-287). 38. First Letter of Peter [1 Pet.]. Written from Rome and pseudepigraphically attributed to Peter, it was ..."
9. from Back Matter:
"... It is dependent on the intracanonical Gospels of Matthew and Luke (Harrison 1936; Koester 1957:112-123; 1982:2.306-308). 48. Second Letter of Clement [2 Clem.]. A treatise, attributed to ..."


3 references in The New Testament Today by Mark Allan Powell (Editor)

1. on Page 11:
"... declaring that the traditions contained in these second-, third-, and fourth-century documents cannot be compared with those in the four intracanonical Gospels. ..."
2. on Page 12:
"... 12 / John S. Kloppenborg Verbin documents offer nothing new or authentic that is independent of the intracanonical Gospels.8 Meier's conclusions regarding both the Gospel of Peter and the Gospel of Thomas are based on an argument that these ..."
3. on Page 13:
"... because of their radical character, are in danger of being ignored by those who base their portraits solely on the intracanonical Gospels. ..."


1 reference in Lord Jesus Christ: Devotion to Jesus in Earliest Christianity by Larry W. Hurtado (Author)

1. on Page 254:
"... in terms that could be taken as pejorative. E.g., "Q provides an instrument by which to measure how much the intracanonical Gospels have covered their own tracks" (Excavating Q, 2). ..."


1 reference in Enoch And Qumran Origins: New Light On A Forgotten Connection by Gabriele Boccaccini (Author), Italy Enoch Seminar 2003 Venice (Author)

1. from Back Matter:
"... Is the mind of Jesus, as represented in the intracanonical Gospels, grounded in the post-Easter community of the Palestinian Jesus movement, as so many from Martin Khler to Hans Conzelmann concluded, ..."


1 reference in Jesus and the Village Scribes: Galilean Conflicts and the Setting of Q by William E. Arnal (Author)

1. from Back Matter:
"... now the Q Gospel is starting to look a little like a Trojan horse, an extracanonical gospel hidden within two intracanonical gospels. If certain scholars have held all noncanonical gospels to be late and dependent, ..."
Sounds to me like intracanonical is just a $10 word for canonical.
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Old 09-29-2006, 11:15 AM   #3
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The term intracanonical is used as a more parallel antonym for extracanonical, and Toto is correct; it is just a fancy word for canonical.

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Old 09-29-2006, 12:41 PM   #4
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Yeah, it looks like a Crossanism for "canonical."

It seems to have a slight connotation of reminding the reader that other, "extracanonical" accounts exist to a somewhat greater extent than the canonical term.
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Old 09-30-2006, 06:20 AM   #5
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Thanks, all. I was guessing it just meant "canonical," but figured I could make sure by putting the question out here.
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