spin

Your assertions are of little consequence. What may be of interest is what you mean by "myth". As in the case of "history" the word "myth" has popular meanings (such as "fake" and "unreal"), as well as more precise meanings (such as the one alluded to by Vork). So what did you intend when you used "myth"?

DCHindley

Just wondering.

DCH

Vorkosigan

Thanks, Adam. It was nice discussing with you.

Vorkosigan

Adam

Ok, vork.
I almost replied to you interpreting #553 as sarcastic (presuming the Redactor twist was unacceptable to you), but then thought better of it. Hopefully we're making some progress.

Adam

Back on Post #526 I suggested that several of the underlying eyewitnesses should not be automatically rejected by Rationalists. I showed in my third paragraph how the Passion Narrative according to John was devoid of supernatural events. In the fifth paragraph I reminded you all that the Q Document has been extensively mined by skeptics who find there an acceptable Historical Jesus. At the end I even stated that the author who put together Proto-Luke could be accepted, at least for those who considered a spiritual Resurrection possible. On further study, I see that the relevant Luke 24 is usually not even considered to be part of Proto-Luke. Let’s consider whether the entirety of Proto-Luke can be set forth as the Gospel According to the Atheists.

Turning back to where I first presented Proto-Luke, with my sixth eyewitness at my Post #132, it may need some tweaking. I have now seen a well detailed Proto-Luke chart from Frederick Grant:
Here’s his listing of Proto-Lucan insertions (excluding Q from the source): Luke 3:10-14, [4:17-22a, (25-30)?], 5:1-11, 7:11-16, 7:36-50, [8:1-3], 9:51-56, 10:29b-37, 38-42, 11:27,28, 12:13-21, 12:32, 33a, [35-38], 47,48, 13:1-17, [31-33], 14;1-10, 12-14, 28-32, [33], 15:11-32, 16:1-12, 19-31, 17:7-10, 12-21, 18:1-14, 19:2-10, 19:40, 42-44, 22:31, 32, [35-38], 23:27-31. (The Gospels, 1957, pg. 130-31)

More recently a simpler list has turned up in which Proto-Luke is listed including Q passages: 3:1-4:30; 5:1-11; 6:20-8:3; 9:51-18:14; 19:1-28, 37-44, 47-48; 22:14-24:53 (minus the Markan insertions).
from Church without Walls: http://wowchurch.blogspot.com/2009/0...l-of-luke.html.
(Footnote: Notable is that both lists exclude the Infancy Narratives, but the latter allows in Luke 24, as I believe is correct. Simon as author is almost specified there. Luke 4:16-30 looks like a home-town boy’s unfavorable account of what happened when Jesus returned home, giving us Simon’s perspective from years before he took a new look at Jesus in Luke 7. Luke 7:11-16 is the resuscitation of the son of the Widow of Nain, a spectacular occurrence which would have awakened Simon to who this close relative really was. For inclusio purposes consider also “Simeon” from Luke 2:25-35. This variant of “Simon”, the Simon Peter of Luke 5:1-11, and the Simon of Luke 7:36-50 all might be a different Simon than the one of Luke 24:13-35, but still could serve. Does “Simeon” indicate that the Infancy Narrative should nevertheless be included in Proto-Luke? A better case can be made for Luke 4:16-30 as candidate for the effective start of Proto-Luke. Luke 5:1-11 I regard as the original Greek Ur-Marcus story copied in from Mark before that version was replaced by Mark 1:16-20.)

Put aside my note above and turning to the need for a gospel for the atheists, use Luke 4:16-30 as the start of L material in Proto-Luke, but preceded by Q in Luke 3:1 to 4:15 (of which Luke 3:10-14 seems to be a Proto-Lucan insertion). After all, even his own brothers denied Jesus. Thereafter the miracles in Mark are not found in the corresponding Proto-Luke, because its nature is to exclude the Marcan stories that were only copied in later. Next comes Luke 7:11-16 that caused great attention to be paid to Jesus, but raising the son back to life can be regarded as a resuscitation of someone who was not really dead. Then we come to the story of Simon the Pharisee, Luke 7:36-50. By this time we definitely have the author on board, thus Proto-Luke could be a complete gospel without supernatural hindrances.

Notable in the above two lists is the conflict regarding the Passion Narrative, this latter list gives next-to-no Passion Narrative, as there are few Q verses for this section either. As Church WOW observes, Proto-Luke theory is at its weakest here. Their list just includes almost everything from the last three chapters, apparently assuming that any gospel would have to include much of this. I think a better explanation is that where Proto-Luke was written, the Passion Narrative was available (just like Acts after Luke) in its form written by John Mark. This would have been Jerusalem. Luke in writing gLuke apparently had access to this and could compose his gospel from this instead of waiting to copy from gMark here. Both Q and Proto-Luke are virtually non-existent here, by the usual rules, so where did Proto-Luke get the portions that did not come from John Mark’s PN? (Footnote: This seems to be an additional argument for the reality of Q being attached to Twelve-Source, leaving very little that later had to be added to Proto-Luke. Not just for Q-Twelve-Source material here, but also for pre-Marcan material, it was already available in Greek before gMark became available to Luke. This creates the problem of leaving us little in stylistic criteria to differentiate in the Passion Narrative between Q and Ur-Marcus. For the former we have to look for verses that are not paralleled in gJohn, but are paralleled in gMatthew or gMark without exactitude of word use:

“Twelve Source” Passion Narrative verses In Proto-Luke are Luke 22:3-23, 48-49, 23:35-37.
Observe! The very next verse marries up with the first verse in which the Johannine PN has the disciples head out to the Garden of Gethsemane. There was no need to continue it any farther. Besides, the writer of Q-Twelve-Source did not participate in the events of the next few days. However, he may be associated with the Galilee pronouncements and appearance.}

So the proposed Gospel According to the Atheists has a snag on the final section. Back to the list from Church WOW Proto-Luke including Q passages: 3:1-4:30; 5:1-11; 6:20-8:3; 9:51-18:14; 19:1-28, 37-44, 47-48; 22:14-24:53
But delete the last section from Luke and substitute Luke 22:3-23, 48-49, 23:35-37 and then the Synoptic parallels in John 18 and 19:
One can read just chapters 18 and 19 here in Fortna’s Signs:
http://www.earlychristianwritings.com/text/signs.html
Or here’s my list I’ve provided a number of times:’ John 18:1b, 1d, 3, 10b, 12, 13b, 15-19, 22, 25b, 27-31, 33-35, (36-40); 19:1-5a, 9-19, 21-23, 28-30, 38b, 40-42.

I have prescreened the above to find it free of incredible supernatural happenings. Healings and such that can be explained away may be found, but even these are few. This gives us Proto-Luke pretty much as written. It combines the very early eyewitness accounts of whoever wrote Q, L and the first Passion Narrative (respectively in my opinion Matthew, Simon, and John Mark). They simply wrote what they heard and saw. The final version of gLuke does add supernatural features that Proto-Luke avoids, mostly because it adds in so very much from gMark. The other eyewitness, Nicodemus, limited himself to sayings of Jesus (the Johannine Discourses) that in the earlier stages misrepresented what Jesus said. Nevertheless, I contend that the above Proto-Luke is a complete gospel as it was in 62 CE, restyled here as The Gospel According to the Atheists.

Toto

How many times do people have to repeat that the mere fact that there are no supernatural elements in a story does not make that story based on eyewitnesses? Showing that something is based on eyewitness material requires much more.

Adam

Even in my original series in Post #38 I showed that Nicodemus had to have been an eyewitness because the nature of what he was writing changed from outsider to insider as the Discourses as gJohn progressed. Or even more--he started out as neutral in John 3, but started taking evidence against Jesus after the charge given to him in John 7:50-52. Later he reversed himself from that position.

Just this week in thinking more intently in #534 about the very circumscribed view of Jesus seen in the Passion Narrative of its Jerusalemite author (John Mark most likely), it figures to be an eyewitness account of someone who first encountered Jesus at the start of a week. All the Synoptic overlap in the last half of gJohn is encompassed within John 11:53-57, 12:2-8, 12-14a 13:18 or 21, and 13:38 plus these verses in John 18 and 19:
18:1b, 1d, 3, 10b, 12, 13b, 15-19, 22, 25b, 27-31, 33-35, (36-40); 19:1-5a, 9-19, 21-23, 28-30, 38b, 40-42.

My argument for Q (or Q1, anyway) being from an eyewitness is not so strong, but so many scholars make so much for their Historical Jesus case from it that it's pretty early. Just drop the Form Criticism preconception and Q1 is most reasonably from someone who heard it, and heard so much that he might have written it down while Jesus was still alive.

I'll refrain from defending Simon as eyewitness because inclusio takes us beyond where anyone here wants to go.

Adam

The Passion Narrative has been my focus lately, as in Posts #526 and #534 (both needing more response), and there and along the way I have been dismissing Form Criticism. Whoops! It was the form critics who established the Passion Narrative as the most agreed-upon early source. K. L. Schmidt in 1919 found the the PN in the Synoptics gives us the only long consecutive sequence, thus with "immediately historical value" (Rahmen, 306). Bultmann similarly found it historical except Mark 14:2-9, 32-42, 55-64; 15:6-14, and 16-20a. (Dibelius agreed to similar passages, but without commiting to them being historical.) (see Gerd Theissen, Historical Criteria, 1998, 445-446.) But that looks like just dropping out what's not in gLuke, which of course eliminates gJohn as well. We keep coming back to the simple solution of accepting the source as in gJohn. Notice also that the anointing in 14:2-9 was initially considered for inclusion even though it's clearly apart from the Passion itself. Back then they "couldn't" give consideration to its presence in gJohn, but now that we can, I don't see them as refuting me.

Unanimity did not continue on the PN, of course. In 1922 Bertram held it to be cultic legend built around the Eucharist as the key text within it (Theissen, 446). However, there is no mention of the body and blood in gJohn, so Bertram's objection can be dismissed if we get the proper focus on the PN source in gJohn.

As to the whole concept of eyewitnessees, consider that the denial is very old-fashioned. Regarding Eta Linnemann's condemnation of her former Form Critic collegues, Robert Yarbrough wrote that she was speaking of her own personal experience in a "German setting where the ongoing task is upholding Strauss' denial of eyewitness status to the gospels." That went back to 1835 (Life, 69). (From "Eta Linnemann: Friend of Foe of Scholarship" The Master's Seminary Journal, p. 187.)

Doug Shaver

Not as old-fashioned as the Pythagorean Theorem.

As you trying to suggest that the best scholarship is the trendiest scholarship?

Sheshbazzar

Sinking ship.