Elijah

The mythologizing may have started early, as in “I saw him heal or after he died” but the ideological ramifications don’t really get dealt with till later beginning with Paul when a highly educated Jew begins to believe. Before that it’s just a faith based movement that even Paul recognizes.
I agree that the synoptics could have been written by anyone of average intelligence if they were just recording what was being orally passed around at the time. But the point I was making was by the time it gets written down it’s not just the story of a man sacrificing himself but now includes the story of his initial followers not understanding him because the people telling and writing the story are no longer the immediate witnesses to the event but are Jews in more Hellenized areas who would look down on the non-Hellenized Jews, Jesus was interacting with as superstitious and backwatered.

John from my perspective seems like it’s written by an elect/initiated for the elect.
I did. It seems Brunner’s problem with John was mainly that first Logos bit which he considered an add-on. He calls John with Paul, the closest to Christ. 372

gdeering

Here's a question I asked back in 2007:

Like many people I've long been struck by the stupidity of the disciples.

Haunting the forum over the years I've just assumed they were a literary device, in a kind of philosophical Burns and Allen relationship with Jesus - if you will. But I don't see much discussion about this, is the question just too obvious?

It's clear how the rhetorical device works within the narrative(s), but can someone point me in the direction of any reading or discussion about what the models for this might have been, literary, theatrical or philosophical.... and who would have known about them (particularly in the first century?).

I am sure it would not be hard to find greek models for ridiculously bad students. In fact I assume it must be easy, but if it's so easy why wouldn't it have been recognized by the contemporary audience - meaning the contemporary audience for the gospels, whenever they were written

.


I'm afraid my idea of the dense students as a foil (and literary device) did not take hold, perhaps outside of the thread of history, but obvious just the same.


Gregg

gurugeorge

Someone either here or in another similar forum proposed a theory I like which I think has been mooted in scholarly books - that the disciples stand for the Jews generally, and "Mark" is criticising the Jews for having been obtuse to Jesus' message/mission circa 0-30CE, this obtuseness having lead to the events of 66-70CE, which were probably fresh in "Mark"'s memory.

So, we have to do with a literary reconstruction of the past, but probably a sincere and honest one, with a somewhat bitter message, and that bitterness is reflected in the way he writes about the disciples.

spin

To try to get people to focus on the OP, you will note that my issue is about hypothetical transmission of tradition. This transmission was supposed to be of recollections from disciples.

Did the gormless Peter, who received a prophecy that he would deny Jesus three times and who did not remember until after the event, pass on all this information in a spirit of full disclosure? Did the dull three who went to Gethsemane with Jesus report how they were all stupid enough to fall asleep when Jesus told them not to (and how they heard what Jesus said while he was out of earshot and they were asleep)? Did they tell their listeners that they were consistently so dumb that they never understood what Jesus was talking about? that they were such schmucks that Jesus had to repeat things over and over? Do we get indications that these representations of the disciples are transmission information (from the disciples themselves)?


spin

spamandham

This is going to sound like hate speech, but it isn't, it's just the result of me contemplating this issue for quite some time.

It's because the disciples are Jews. One of the purposes of the Gospels (the main purpose, IMHO), is to show the transition of god's favor from the Jews who just didn't get it, to this new sect spun off from Judaism. It's the classic "the 2nd son is most favored" formula seen throughout the Old Testament.

jakejonesiv

Philospher Jay,
Excellent observations!

Jake

Quote:

Originally Posted by PhilosopherJay Hi Show_no_mercy, Yes, the current form of the Thomas story in the Gospel does seem to be a Third century invention. Origen supplies further further evidence for this. Origen (circa 250) in "Against Celsus, describes Celsus (writing circa 180) on the question this way (Book 2:LIX): Quote: Speaking next of the statements in the Gospels, that after His resurrection He showed the marks of His punishment, and how His hands had been pierced, he asks, "Who beheld this?" And discrediting the narrative of Mary Magdalene, who is related to have seen Him, he replies, "A half-frantic woman, as ye state." And because she is not the only one who is recorded to have seen the Saviour after His resurrection, but others also are mentioned, this Jew of Celsus calumniates these statements also in adding, "And some one else of those engaged in the same system of deception!" It seems likely that Celsus only knew of Jesus appearance to Mary and perhaps one other woman or disciple. It seems possible that the short ending of Mark was all that he knew, or some variation of it. Justin Martyr doesn't mention Thomas at all. In his Treatise On the Resurrectinon (9), we get: Again, the Thomas story is entirely missing, although we see the proto story here., where all the disciples see Jesus's nail prints, and handle him. We may easily see the logical pathway to the Thomas story by combining the Marcosian story presented in "Against Heresies" and this story. 1. All apostles doubt Jesus and handle him 2. Thomas was not among the Apostles who saw Jesus because he had rejected the faith. From these stories a follower could easily think: 1. If the apostles who knew Jesus best doubted, why should not everybody doubt until we touch the nail prints and handle him. 2. If Thomas left and he was a devout follower of Jesus and never got to see Jesus resurrected and never believed it, then maybe we should follow Thomas' example, and doubt everything and just leave. The solution was to combine the two stories and reverse them. Instead of the apostles doubting upon seeing Jesus, the Apostles accept that it is Jesus. Instead of leaving the apostles and never seeing the resurrected Jesus, and forever being Doubting Thomas, Thomas becomes the one to handle Jesus and become convinced. Instead of a doubter, he becomes a believer. Warmly, Philosopher Jay Quote: Originally Posted by show_no_mercy Are you implying that the Doubting Thomas scene in John is 3rd century?

jakejonesiv

See Did Heretics Write ProtoMark?

There is also a good thread in the archives, Mark's view of the disciples, which is not available right now.

spin

Sorry, babies, but I just haven't been able to communicate the heart of the issue about how the tradition could have been transmitted.

I was hoping that you might read to the end of the paragraph rather than going off on the first sentence. I tried to clarify the OP in post 24. But the horse was out of the gate by then.

I'm interested in how disciples could have transmitted the idea that they were dumb to the annalists of Jesus so that the latter could portray them so poorly.


spin

rlogan

Clearly that is silly.

The forum is just so entertaining as of late. Tell me you had a deadpan face when you typed this.


You have Isaiah being spun into a historical narrative. Every agent in the story is merely a vehicle for justifying a theological stand. That includes jesus and the disciples.


Sometimes you need to put him in front of rulers, sometimes in front of disciples, sometimes the Temple Priests. And a lady of the evening. You get your theology out there with these dummy placeholders.

I felt innately many times that we were the disciples when these liturgical devices were being used in church. Explaining to the laity by explaining it to the apostles.

So for example: Jesus calms the seas. Why? We need to have faith in him (have faith in our doctrine) because he is superman. So you fabricate a story of an ocean voyage and the disciples cower with fear. Jesus is snoozing away and they wake him. He tells the storm to STFU and then rebukes the disciples for their lack of faith.

We don't want to be those bad disciples shaking in fear. We are going to be good disciples and trust in this kick-ass Jesus.


The conundrum is that on the one hand you have to portray this as a mystery that the Jews could not figure out. Mark 12 is pretty clear on that. You have Jesus telling everyone to keep it a secret. Don't tell anyone or they'll be saved too! (Mark 4:12 for example).

So shhhh.... we're in on a secret here. But on the other hand you have him feeding five thousand people with five loaves and sending two thousand pigs into the sea, kings know of him, He's so radioactive the whole Temple political structure is threatened.

So this process creates ridiculous mutual exclusivities.

On the one hand everyone recognizes him. On the other hand you need Judas Iscariot to "betray" him. WTF? He has to kiss Jesus so Jesus can be identified, but yet he is the most famous man in the Kindgom? But when you have prophecy dictating a storyline it is not going to be internally consistent.

Jesus tells us this is an example of how powerful prophecy is. See how you didn't arrest me when you could in broad daylight? But prophecy says I will be arrested so here you have no choice but to do it anyway.

So to your issue about disciples: I don't think there needs to be some rule beyond that they are tools used by the writer to get a theology across. Sometimes they are merely props:

Mark 13:1 Master, look at the temple... "Not one stone shall be left standing..."

So the disciple is just a prop for a prophecy credentialing of Jesus. It is the preacher who reads Mark to the congregation, saying "look at how Jesus prophesized this." And see how the Jews had the saviour wrested from them and their temple and people destroyed so utterly?

As was foretold...

Elijah

They transmit the idea of being dumb by being unable to explain what Jesus was saying when they are repeating the story and his words. If Peter for example is going around repeating what Jesus said they are going to ask what he thinks Jesus meant and if he can’t provide an acceptable answer going "I’m just a fisherman" then the story that is passed on is Jesus’ teachings in addition to not being understood by his immediate followers.

Specific things like Peter’s denial can come from the story coming from multiple sources/witnesses who don’t care about how he looked personally when they are telling the story. But it’s not too much of a stretch of the imagination to believe he did go around saying that because they were going to ask how come he wasn’t taken when they took Jesus and a prophesized denial is better than just a plain denial.

If it was thought to be written by an actual witness then you could expect that the witness in question would be shown favorable; comparable to the beloved disciple in John. If it’s supposed to be written by later Christians after it’s been orally transmitted for a while then a more critical look at the apostles shouldn’t be surprising.