Steven Carr

From memory , I think some early manuscripts have '11' here , instead of 12.

I could be wrong. Does anybody have a Nestle-Anand 27 handy to check?

Vorkosigan

Yes, that's right. I forgot about that. One piece of evidence for anachronism is that later editors corrected the error. Metzger writes

"Instead of recognizing that [twelve] is used here as an official designation, several witnesses, chiefly western, have introduced the pedantic correction [eleven] (D* F G 330 464* it vg syr(hmg) goth Archelaus Eusebius Ambrosiaster Jerome Pelagius mss(acc to augustine) John-Damascus) Compare the similar correction at Ac 1.26."

Assuming I haven't misread the Greek and some other problem is being discussed -- always a possibility! -- it looks like Metzger's theological assumptions have gotten the better of him -- but it is clear that lots of authorities in antiquity saw the same problem.

Vorkosigan

Vorkosigan

Another knock against the "Twelve" reference in 1 Cor, and hence the entire passage, is that the Twelve may well be Markan invention. 1 Cor is their only mention in Paul....see this:

The first call of Jesus to his disciples takes place in Mark 1:16-20. Here is the passage:

16: And passing along by the Sea of Galilee, he saw Simon and Andrew the brother of Simon casting a net in the sea; for they were fishermen. 17: And Jesus said to them, "Follow me and I will make you become fishers of men."
18: And immediately they left their nets and followed him. 19: And going on a little farther, he saw James the son of Zeb'edee and John his brother, who were in their boat mending the nets. 20: And immediately he called them; and they left their father Zeb'edee in the boat with the hired servants, and followed him.

This call is an invention off of 1 Kings 19:19-21:

19 So Elijah went from there and found Elisha son of Shaphat. He was plowing with twelve yoke of oxen, and he himself was driving the twelfth pair. Elijah went up to him and threw his cloak around him. 20 Elisha then left his oxen and ran after Elijah. "Let me kiss my father and mother good-by," he said, "and then I will come with you." "Go back," Elijah replied. "What have I done to you?"
21 So Elisha left him and went back. He took his yoke of oxen and slaughtered them. He burned the plowing equipment to cook the meat and gave it to the people, and they ate. Then he set out to follow Elijah and became his attendant.


The parallels are listed in Brodie (2000, p91):

*the action begins with a caller...and with motion toward those to be called;
*those called are working (plowing/fishing);
*the call, whether by gesture (Elijah) or word (Jesus) is brief;
*later, the means of livelihood are variously destroyed or mended, the plow
is destroyed, but the nets are mended -- a typical inversion of images...;
*after further movement, there is a leave-taking of home;
*there is also a leave-taking of other workers;
*finally, those who called follow the caller.

Note, however, that there is another parallel not listed there. Take a close look at 1 Kings 19:19

19 So Elijah went from there and found Elisha son of Shaphat. He was plowing with twelve yoke of oxen, and he himself was driving the twelfth pair.

Just as Elisha plows with 12 oxen, so Jesus will break ground with 12 disciples. There are lots of possible origins for The Twelve, but I thought I'd toss this out for consideration. Here, in the original passage from which Mark got his first call, "twelve" are mentioned. There is even a "pair" of oxen driven by Elisha, the last pair, just as Jesus appoints a "pair" of disciples.

Vorkosigan

Amaleq13

A Markan invention would seem to argue against the possibility that the passage represents a pre-Pauline tradition.

Mark uses "twelve" fourteen times but only ten of those are references to the disciples. Do you think it is relevant that the four other times Mark uses "twelve" is as an incidental detail in a miracle story?

It is the number of baskets full of bread fragments in the "loaves & fishes" miracle.

It is the age of the girl who was raised from the dead.

It is the duration of the woman's ailment who was healed of "an issue of blood".

Layman

Yes, we have a first hand account that says so. All you have is your imagination. The only reason to believe your source is an absolute liar about this is because you don't like what he says. Hardly proper methodology. Moreover, Paul did not have the luxury of inventing stories about James. Throughout his ministry he is working to maintain and/or improve relations between the Gentile churches and the Jerusalem Church.

Fringe has nothing to do with who I like. It's simply a comparison of the subject's positions with those of the rest of the academic community. On matters related to the New Testament, Witherington has a lot of company, for example, in dating the gospels. Indeed, he's pretty much right in the middle of the pact. His conclusion that Luke wrote Acts may not be the majority opinion, but it is held by a fair number of respected scholars, such as Polhill, Streeter, Bruce, and Fitzmyer. His rejection of the disciple John's authorship of the Gospel of John is hardly an extremist position.

As for the shroud, frankly I do not know much of his opinion on the matter other than he seems to be open to the idea. I also do not know the state of the question enough to know if this is fringe. From what I know about the Shroud, which is not a lot, I think it is a distraction and been demonstrated to be inauthentic. Of course, it's not really relevant to New Testament studies, IMO, and though Witherington falls on the conservative side of the spectrum, he's hardly what you'd call fringe. Unless, of course, you are so far too the other side that the conservative perspective seems so far away.

I thought I did. I don't think Paul waited three years from his conversion to receive the bare essentials of the death and resurrection of Jesus from the Jerusalem leaders. I assume he knew plenty about what Christians believed before his conversion. Which was why he was persecuting them. Was the formula that early? Did Paul hear of it from Christians before he began his persecution? During his persecution? Or did he learn the formula in Damascus from Christians there? I see no reason to suppose that he did not learn the "bare essentials of the death and resurrection of Jesus" until three years later. Of course, he could know the "bare essentials of the death and resurrection of Jesus" without having learned the formula he passes on in 1 Cor. 15.

Follow the ball, Toto. No one thinks Paul created this tradition. That's why I've been calling it a pre-existing tradition. In any event, Paul also was the one who said that wives should submit to their husbands. I think he was likely ahead of his time in including women in the new faith, but he obviously was not completely free of the influences of his former faith and life.

Once more together: Paul. Did. Not. Create. The. Tradition. It. Is. A. Pre-Existing. Tradition.

The point is clear, if this is a list of witnesses intended as an evidential basis for the resurrection, it is understandable that the early Church, by which we probably mean here the Jerusalem Church, left them out.

As for Mark, there are no resurrection appearances to the women or anyone else in the earlier manuscripts. I happen to think that there was a longer ending, but the jury is still out on that one. If you are asking whether Luke, Matthew, and John "added" them then the answer is no. I that they, writing narratives of the empty tomb and resurrection appearances, had little choice but to explain how the empty tomb was found and who Jesus first appeared to.

It's more of a problem for those who claim that someone who was already familiar with the gospels interpolated this account later and for whatever reason added an appearance to James that no one else had heard of.

Besides, Paul elsewhere refers to James as an apostle (Gal. 1:19), which required that the person had seen the risen Christ. (1 Cor. 9:1; 1 Cor. 15:7-9). So Paul indicates elsewhere that James had experienced an appearance of the risen Christ. Clearly, therefore, it is silly to suppose that it was a later invention by an interpolator.

No. A Christian writing later in the first century (or even later, I'm not sure just how unreasonable you are being here), would be more familiar with the gospel stories. We'd expect more conformance, not less. Nor would we expect gentile Christians to add indications of some sort of hyper Jewish sect--such as inventing an appearance to James or using rabbinic technical language to refer to the tradition itself. Remember, even the most Jewish of the gospels -- the Gospel of Matthew -- fails to mention the appearance to James. You are claiming there was some ultra-Jewish Christian sect that invented appearances to James and added technical rabbinic language to their manuscripts, but that it was the Gentile churches who took that one manuscript and adopted it as their own--eventually replacing all their own more authentic manuscripts to adopt the Jewish sect's version of events?

Seems unlikely. Also seems unduly speculative. Combined, there's no reason to believe this is anything other than an ad hoc attempt to come to the conclusion that your bias desires.

Toto

You have an account that cannot be verified. You could never get away with that sort of evidence in court.

The Shroud is demonstrated pseudoscience. Witherington seems to believe that it is real, in the face of all the scientific and historical evidence. If this does not deserve the epithet "fringe" there is no meaning.

Lots of questions. No answers. As Robert Price points out, the formula contains only the bare essentials of the death and resurrection of Jesus.

I'm too tired right now to reply to the rest, if a reply is needed.

Amaleq13

You wrote this in response to Toto's question "Why would he omit an appearance to a woman?" but it makes no sense in that context. Have you switched topics rather than answer the question? Who suggests that Paul has created a "tradition" that he doesn't mention? How can you call an initial appearance to women a "pre-existing tradition" when there is no evidence of it prior to the Gospel stories? Do you have a credible answer to Toto's question?

Why would any of this be relevant if belief in an initial appearance to women was a "pre-existing tradition" in Christian beliefs?

It does not appear to me to be offered by Paul with that intention. He clearly states his intent just before the passage:

"By which also ye are saved, if ye keep in memory what I preached unto you, unless ye have believed in vain."

Paul is presenting a summary of the gospel he had preached to the Corinthians as a reminder of what they already accepted on faith.

Do you have any rational argument or evidence to support this belief?

The literary reasons Mark's author had for depicting women as the first to discover the tomb have already been discussed. Subsequent authors rewriting Mark's story "had little choice" but to deal with this existing story. The only apparent purpose for Matthew's author to add an appearance seems to be to "correct" Mark by having Jesus tell them to not be afraid.

Layman

This is not court. We have a first hand account from a witness who "did not have the luxury of inventing stories about James. Throughout his ministry he is working to maintain and/or improve relations between the Gentile churches and the Jerusalem Church."

And I've lost track. Are you saying Paul lied about meeting Peter? Hardly seems likely since he and Peter had a quite public disagreement in Galatia. Are you saying that he lied about James? Hardly seems likely. People purporting to be from James were attacking Paul and no doubt would have raised this fact against Paul. No indicating that they did. Are you saying Paul lied about Peter and James agreeing with his Gospel? Again seems unlikely. If Peter and James rejected his Gospel, how come no one argued that against Paul? Seems like Paul would have a whole lot of 'splainin to do, given that Peter and the Jerusalem Church had contact with his churches.

The Shroud is not even in Witherington's field of expertise. Hence, his beliefs about the Shroud, whatever they are, does not make him a fringe scholar.

What do you mean no answers? I said Paul probably learned the formula before or shortly after his conversion. There's no need to suppose that Paul did not learn it until three years later in Jerusalem.

I also think that it's hardly the "bare essentials" of the gospel that Jesus appeared to Peter, the Twelve, James, and the Apostles. Or himself for that matter. Indeed, it seems quite assured that Paul knew the "bare essentials" of the Christian message before he was a Christian--which is why he was persecuting them.

Layman

Are the moderators going to all pile on and stick up for each other in these threads? I don't mind substance responses, but this petty whining about not answering questions that were clearly addressed is just another example of why this forum has become so lockstep.

The answer makes perfect sense. How could Paul "omit" something from a tradition that he did not create? If Paul did not create the tradition, he did not decide who was or was not mentioned in it.

Are we on different planets? The point is obvious. Toto appears to be saying that Paul would not have left out an appearance to the women because he was such a great women's libber. First I pointed out that since Paul did not create the tradition he can hardly be held liable for what is or is not in it. Thus, Toto's argument that Paul was a feminist is irrelevant. Second, I was pointing out that -- despite Toto's opinion that Paul was a women's libber -- he still held views about women that many would consider to not be all that enlightened. So even if Paul had a part in shaping the tradition, we can't say he would have been so consumed with his feminism that he'd demand the appearance to the women be inserted into it.

Paul's intention is not necessarily all that relevant to why the tradition was created in the first place. All together again. This. Is. A. Pre-Existing. Tradition. But in any event, the question is why Paul had to remind the Corinthians about this? It is because of doubts about the resurrection. As Paul states quite clearly as soon as he wraps up the recitation of the tradition and appearances: "Now if Christ is preached, that He has been raised from the dead, how do some among you say that there is no resurrection of the dead?" 1 Cor. 15:12.


Do you have something to contribute other than baseless accusations that I'm not answering questions or snide comments? Especially when I did offer specific explanation that you chopped into two sections.

Please stop the petty parsing.

Well, if they've already been discussed, then . . . what? What's your point?

Toto

Layman - none of us here are acting as moderators.

It has been so long since I wrote that post I assumed that I could not follow what you were saying because I had forgotten what it was about, and it was late at night, and that Amaleq13 was doing a better job of following it than I was.

But when I go back to my post, I find:


So you are the one who implied that Paul was doing something other than passing on a preexisting creed. I was just commenting on your statement, which attempted to explain the differences between Paul's account of the resurrection (the traditional creed) and the gospels account of women as witnesses to the resurrection.

So you do seem to have changed the subject, and you are blaming me for your words, and using the whole mess to rain insults on this entire forum.

On Paul, my assumption has always been that the misogyny in Paul's letters was a later addition, since it seems to fit in better with a later more hierarchical church. In any case, he has not shown reluctance to mention women as prophets or coworkers elsewhere.

But perhaps you would like to revise that original statement.