Solitary Man

A real in-depth review of Meier would be good for you. Make sure you look up every footnote and read the sources carefully. I hope you don't make the same mistake as Sanders (Sanders assumes this, ergo the whole book is junk). I'm quite sick of you pseudo-scholars taking what you want out of a book while trashing real gems found elsewhere. Do I trash Meier for thinking that Thomas is late and dependent on the Gospels? No. To do so would be poor scholarship, not to mention downright stupid. Only in Biblical studies...

andrewcriddle

The following is partly based on Reading the Old Testament by John Barton.

Form Criticism argues that important stylistic features of the text correspond to oral not written conventions. In good Form Criticism this is something that must be argued for not assumed.

Assume FTSOA that this has been established more or less convincingly for a given text. There are then two options. Either a/ the passage is a somewhat modified version of an earlier oral discourse or b/ the passage is an original composition written in deliberate imitation of oral conventions. Form Criticism normally (not always) prefers option a/ to option b/. Some would argue that this premise/preference is invalid, and on occasion it probably is. However option a/ is clearly simpler and involves less hypothetical entities than option b/.

Andrew Criddle

JoeWallack

JW:
What I remember best is that in previous such confrontations with you my memory is better than yours. I went through TNIGTC on "Mark" in detail for my 1001 Errors in the Christian Bible list. Every time I check on something like this it makes me realize that books like this are even worse than I initially thought. Here it is:

Page 5

In 719 pages France provides no arguments that the source for some of "Mark" is the Jewish Bible. I think based on just reading his book the average reader would not even think of it as an issue. Regarding the issue of "Mark" copying from Paul there isn't even a hint (France does point out "Mark's" use of words that can be found elsewhere in the Christian Bible in general which appears to be his (France's) only use of 1 Thessalonians). What France does instead is talk about Peter as a source for "Mark". Badly. What do you expect from a Clergy masquerading as a Scientific Bible Scholar. There's a quality for Bible scholars that is exponentially more important to their quality than language skill. Your heart is hardened to this reality.

I have Faith that it would be easier to find Bush's exit strategy from Iraq than a Christian commentary book on "Mark" that properly evaluates the issue of whether "Mark" copied from Paul. Until these literary weapons of mass publication are found I'll stick with "largely".

JW:
(shaking head) Jesus, I think I'll limit my conversations with you to language issues. "Matthew" and "Luke" aren't going to help much with the question of whether "Mark" copied from Paul because they are largely an Editing of "Mark".



Joseph

OutSourcing Paul, A Contract Labor of Love Another's(Writings). Paul as Markan Source

Zeichman

I would encourage you to do that, along with SM. However, there seems to be a tendency among mythicists (and among historicists regarding mythicists, as well) to assume that breaking down one person's argument indicates the opposite. I'm reminded of an acquaintance's metaphor of the "dumb apple cart": If you find the right spot and push hard enough, it'll all fall over and be stupid. This is neither an interesting nor a productive way to approach the question.

And I would certainly admit tendencies of this in the stuff that I've written.

lpetrich

This argument is going around in circles.

Has anyone tried testing form criticism and similar literary techniques on cases where one knows what the original was like?

Like medieval literature that features Theodoric the Great under names like Dietrich von Bern.