Zeichman

I have not read the Acts of Jesus, but I know that they believe Jesus was also a healer.


Granting its independence, I know of no other interpretation.


Again, I think you misassess your "opponents", Crossan believes that the Miracles and deeds of Jesus are the key to Jesus' so-called "open commensality" and"radical egalitarianism."

Yalla: I still fail to understand that as apologetics, as there is nothing uniquely Christian about that position. Perhaps we should just agree to disagree. I think Rick Sumner phrased the position which he and I hold well with the "aardvark" comment.

Rick: I suppose you may be right in that Funk never formally rejected Christianity, but he seems to hold so little in common with orthodox Christianity (the aforementioned original sin, a "reverence" for Jesus, and a belief in a god) that I'm not sure the term "Christian" is useful for describing him.

Rick Sumner

The same could be said for Marcus Borg or John Shelby Spong, yet the former's The Heart of Christianity and virtually all of the latter's works are undeniably liberal Christian apologetics.

Regards,
Rick Sumner

Zeichman

Borg, iirc, still accepts the incarnation, afterlife, the immanence and trascendence of God and other orthodox Christian beliefs. I haven't read Spong, but from what I hear about, you are correct in that he is a post-Christian. Perhaps its not as simple a distinction as I'd like to believe it is. Either way, we're far removed from the title of the topic.

Chris Weimer

So much response, so little from me. Well, here I go.

Emphasis mine.

Which scholars are hardy advocates that Q goes all the way back to Jesus himself? I don't know of any, off-hand, that do, and if they did hold such, then I stamp that part of their theory as "fallacious". But to stamp the entire argument as fallacious because they use Q is quite absurd.

This is, of course, assuming that a) Jesus really existed, and b) that Q contains the oral traditions of Jesus to its fullest extent, neither of which have anything to do with Q as an hypothesis to the Synoptic Problem.

Borg, as Sumner most recently indicated, is still in the liberal Christian camp, which, believe it or not, assumes an historical Jesus.

Au contraire. What they are actually doing is using a circular argument: "Jesus exists, thus Q probably contains his words. Since Q contains his words, Jesus exists."

But I might want to add that this is also is a Red Herring on your part. How Q is being (ab)used by some scholars is in no way a valid offense against Q. Try again.

Chris Weimer

Q was, if I recall correctly, a reaction against the Tubinger school's assessment that Matthew was written first and far later than the "eyewitness Matthew". Thus some of the more conservative (being relative, after all) scholars formed Q to give more authenticity to the New Testament.

On that point, yalla, we never disagreed. However, this is unrelated to the continual findings of some of Mark/Q as being fairly consistently the median for the Synoptics.

What about me, Stephen, neither a traditionalist nor a non-traditionalist? I'm not a Christian at all, so how is this a valid argument against Q?

S.C.Carlson

That would be W. R. Farmer's thesis.

It wasn't meant to be argument against Q, but to explain why every Q supporter is not necessarily an apologist. One could analogously argue that the Farrer theory also has something for everyone: non-traditionalists get to see more creativity in the composition of the gospels, and traditionalists don't get to deal with a non-canonical wildcard. In a sense, all successful theories do give something for everyone. I think it is helpful to know what they are.

The traditionalist versus non-traditionalist contrast is admittedly an oversimplied dichotomy. Catholic scholars don't fit easily into this partition. Assuming that the non-Christian wouldn't be considered the ultimate non-traditionalist, neither would you fit into it. That would imply that you shouldn't be as susceptible to these psychological forces propping up Q.

Stephen

Chris Weimer

Indeed! Actually, I've not read it, but I did stay at a Holiday Inn last night.

Ah, sorry Stephen. I thought we were arguing the merits of Q by now. Mea culpa, mi amice.

Vinnie

Hi Julian. Studying the Synoptic Gospels is a good text.



When you say "I dont' see the need for an epitome post Matthew and Luke" you are making the assumptions about evangelists and would be authors post Matthew and Luke---a very dangerous and uncertain proposition. In your case your assumption is probably inaccurate since Mark has many differences from Matthew.

----Matthew esteems the twelve. Mark programatically denigrates them througout and attacks apostolic Christianity.

-----Mark omits Matthew's infancy narrative. Presumably he knew the convoluted and problematic joruney to egypt was a spurious creation of Matthew and he also knew thjat Luke saw the problems in Matthew's account and tried to circumvent them with a census but he also made his own errors (the census!). Mark just axed it all.

----Mark saw both authors had given Judas a codign ending. He may also have been aware of a third tradition (killed by a wagon or some such in Papias) and just avoided that issue alltogether.

-----Mark also streamlines his ending which elicits an important response from his audience. If all others have failed, who is the disciple that should carry on the message? Naturally the reader. The ending is a call to the reader to move to action.

-----Where Matthew and Luke have a law observant Jesus Mark follows them but he alone has Jesus boldy nullify the torah's food laws.

-----The woman at the end of Mark do not tell anyone about Jesus' resurrection because Mark is writing an apolgetic of why apostolic Christianity might have started out somewhat differently than with the story of an empty tomb and/or risen Jesus.

----- Mark has the messianic secret whereas Matthew an Luke do not.

----- Mark saw how loose the passion was in Mattthew and decided to tighten it.

and so on...

Some of these are stronger than others but there are enough differences in the theology of Mark to warrant an abridgement of Matthew but certain things like an omission of the SotM and other passages are inexplicable.


Most Q propoenents are open to the fluidity of a sayings text and many think MT and Lk might have used different versions. Both versions had the sermon sayings. Even if they used the same versions different copies of Q, just 10-20 years after Mark would have written were used by different evangelists and both had the sermon material. One is very hard pressed to remove such material from a Q used by Mark.

Finally, even if we do something like this it only works once or so. If I find more material in Q that would have been very much with the theological grain of Mark---so much so that he cannot be reconstructed as having dropped it, then the argument is over.

I think this is incorrect on all levels. Mark's community is most always interpreted as having underwent persecution and suffering. The sermon on the mount is very much with the grain of Mark and

Not all, but more than he did. Why did Mark retain the Q passages he did, but leave out "blessed are the poor in spirit"? You have to provide a solid redaction critical explanation for this. It simply cannot be done. We are left claiming Mark knew a version of Q without this, that or that or this and so on down the line. Q gets smaller and smaller until it becames a malleable text that will fit any theory. In other words, it becomes absolutely useless.

I agree. Sanders reconstructs what he feels is a Mattheanism in Lukew but one example is not strong since scribal harmonization towards Matthew is an documented phenomenon. But if we have a number of different families of manuscripts the argument towards scribal harmonization loses its appeal. It would have to have occured very early to corrupt all manuscripts and if it happened too early it would have been before Matthew became popular enough to induce such harmonization which finds its way into Luke (and all versions). So scribal harmoniaztion is not very strong here. In the case of GThomas scribal harmonization arguments are to be given more consideration.

There is no need for an either-or. Mark can be colloqual and have "bad Greek" if we can accurately distinguish the concepts as such. Mark need not keep the phrasing of Matthew and Luke. He was a writer with less skill and put things in his own tongue, even if it "dumbed down " the content of Matthew and Luke. Ever see a student write an essay based off other sources that have better writing skills and content structuring than they thmselve possess?

Vinnie

yalla

CW "Au contraire. What they are actually doing is using a circular argument: "Jesus exists, thus Q probably contains his words. Since Q contains his words, Jesus exists"

That's not apologetic?
Take Q out of that sequence and see what results.

CW: "Thus some of the more conservative (being relative, after all) scholars formed Q to give more authenticity to the New Testament."

That is a stronger statement than I would make. It can be taken to imply invention from nothing....I dont think you mean that.

CW "But to stamp the entire argument as fallacious because they use Q is quite absurd.'

But I have not.
Or at least I don't think have. Where did I say this? If you find it I will retract.

I did say I objected to the presumption that it is the only game in town and that the alternative was given usually scant attention and discussion was then along those lines.
I did say that it operates as an apologetic device and I have been supported in that, in varying degree, by more than 1 poster and you included yourself in that.

I cited Drury to show that a reputable Christian scholar is at least willing to hint that.

yalla post #64 "I see the hypothesis of Q operating in a similar matter but still in the stage where it is the dominant paradigm yet to be demolished if it will be."

Note the last 4 words.

CW: "Which scholars are hardy advocates that Q goes all the way back to Jesus himself? I don't know of any, off-hand, that do, and if they did hold such, then I stamp that part of their theory as "fallacious"

B. Mack p47 of "Who Wrote the NT?"
"That means that Q puts us as close to the HJ as we will ever be...It has enabled us to reconsider and revise the traditional picture of early Christian history by filling in the time from JC until just after the destruction of Jerusalem when the first narrative gospel, the gospel of Mark, was written"

Does that qualify?

I think my major crime was my tone in my first post, but, in my defense, I finished with.. '...'sorry if I'm being flippant.."

Perhaps I should have been more mindful of Drury's words in his intro. to his book:
"The critic hears an ecclesiastical voice beseeching him to tread softly, for he treads on it's dreams".

Chris Weimer

I never said it wasn't. However, that's not the sole use of Q nor is it a valid argument against Q from those who don't believe in him (which was the whole point!).

Sure! Jesus exists. Plain and simple. Even without Q, scholars have claimed that Matthew or Mark or proto-Luke or whatever went back far enough to the original Jesus. You don't need Q used that way. Q has many more functions.

Guilty by implication, I suppose. Your first "flippant" post about how some will use Q without verifying its existence first, implying that Vinnie was somehow in the wrong for making a thread about the usage of Q. It's tied in, though I see now that the argument between us is superficial.

See above.

Actually, I've spoken out many times against the HJ quest altogether. Any sort of "advancements" in concluding who the HJ was is tenuous and are, to be cliche, castles upon the sand. I personally would not posit Q going back to the HJ, even if one existed, and of that I'm not even sure.

At least not by that quote its not. Actually, its more mythicist (at least without its context) than you take it to be. If I'm reading it rightly, Q is the earliest of the Christian traditions circulating, which is probably fairly accurate.

But I don't know Mack's views on the HJ or MJ and how they tie to Q. Personally, I don't think it's relevant.

Chris