ApostateAbe

Jiri, I apologize. Can you please describe your method of "lectio difficilor" as it applies in this case?

Toto

Who proclaimed this "golden rule" and why is is golden? Perhaps it is fool's gold, the iron pyrite rule.

Jesus himself spoke in parables. Christianity began in an era of mystery religions, and was a subversive, underground movement before the 4th century. Is there any good reason to assume that the plain meaning of the text is the only meaning or the best meaning?

I can think of a multitude of popular songs, popular culture references that seem to have a straightforward meaning, but are actually about drugs or sex. Your rule would fail in those cases.

jgoodguy

I'd suggest that that "golden rule" is a form of Occam's razor and I'd not argue against it. YMMV

The songs are not a good example to counter Occam's razor. However they are a cautionary tale about taking ancient literature from another culture literally. Baring evidence to the contrary a literal reading trumps all within a naturalistic framework(AKA methodology).

Puff, the Magic Dragon is a good example. The literal reading is the correct one. Assuming a drug connection is incorrect.

One Toke Over The Line may represent a good example of cultural problems. Not knowing what a toke was let to the song being described as a spiritual on the very conservative Lawrence Welk Show.

Tying this back to our disputes over the HJ and JM. If critical errors can be made in the interpretation of literature over 40 years in the modern time where there is lots of background data available, then figuring if there was a HJ or a JM within 40 years of the alleged Crucifixion in a evidence poor environment is going to be impossible. Assuming a HJ, a 33CE Crucifixion and a Way Back Machine to 70CE, finding the HJ in the literature with any great assurance would be impossible to any extent.

Solo

As Toto said well; the gospels were a cultic (and occultic) literature. They were to confuse outsiders by setting new frames of reference for common figures of speech. They described 'mental events' the early Christians believed only they had access to, or at any rate, only they could handle in a morally superior way. These visionary and oracular events were represented as historical happenings.

At the centre of the mystery mongering was the 'body full light' which Mark suppresses (actually represents as Transfiguration) but Matt and Luke advertise:

Mt 6:22-23 The eye is the lamp of the body. So, if your eye is sound, your whole body will be full of light but if your eye is not sound, your whole body will be full of darkness. If then the light in you is darkness, how great is the darkness!

Lk 11:34-36 Your eye is the lamp of your body; when your eye is sound, your whole body is full of light; but when it is not sound, your body is full of darkness. Therefore be careful lest the light in you be darkness. If then your whole body is full of light, having no part dark, it will be wholly bright, as when a lamp with its rays gives you light."

The point is this is not Jesus speaking on the Mount or off the Mount; these are 'spiritualist' assurances and guidance of the gospels to those who experience these happenings. We know that this 'inner light' has physiological origins and is caused by the 'flooding' of the optical nerve. The contexts are high level of stress, as in strokes, heart attacks, cerebral edema (brain swelling), complex partial seizures, either in epilepsy or as a result of protracted ecstatic excitement. During this flooding of the nerve, the brain functions very strangely in something called 'synaesthesia', which makes you feel 'eternity'; time ceases; the whole universe seems captured in one moment. We know that but the Greeks didn't. They were mystified by these occurences and called them 'pleroma' (fullness). Paul created a new nomenclatura and ethical teachings around these fairly common phenomena, and asserted he and his ecstatic friends were in Christ, or having Christ in their bodies.

So the "lectio difficilor" of the first two verses in Luke relates to the experience of Christ and the 'utterance' that this experience gives: 'Many have undertaken to draw up an account of the things that have been fulfilled among us, just as they were delivered to us by those who from the beginning were eyewitnesses and ministers of the word.

Is my reading any clearer now ?

Jiri

ApostateAbe

Jiri, your model is clearer. I was curious specifically about "lectio difficilor." How do you think of that methodology. The only way that I know about it is when it applies to two different copies of the same passage except with different phrasing. I would like to know how you think of it. Tell me what your method is.

Dave31

Give this blog a good going over. It's too long to post the whole thing here.

PhilosopherJay

Hi Toto and Apostate Abe,
The key problem word here in this translation is the word "investigated" (παρηκολουθηκότι).

According to Strong

Original Word: παρακολουθέω
Part of Speech: Verb
Transliteration: parakoloutheó
Phonetic Spelling: (par-ak-ol-oo-theh'-o)
Short Definition: I accompany, follow closely, investigate
Definition: I accompany, follow closely, characterize, both lit. and met.; I investigate.

3877 parakolouthéō (from 3844 /pará, "from close-beside" and 190 /akolouthéō, "follow") – properly, follow closely, especially through a detailed comparing; follow after closely to resemble (illustrate, play out) what leads.

According to Strong's exhaustive concordance:

Word Origin
from para and akoloutheó
Definition
to follow closely, to investigate


There are two other uses of the word in the New Testament
In both other cases in the New Testament, the word means "follow" rather than "investigate." The word "investigate" in modern language means to do active research. We think of a detective investigating the truth of something. There were no detectives in Luke's days. The first detectives were in the 1800's. This is very far from "following something closely" which involves no active research to determine the truth. Only by mistranslating the passage can we get the idea that Luke actively sought the truth as opposed to following something he already accepted as the truth.

The other point where the translation seems way off, is when it puts "I too decided" after "I investigated" when "ἔδοξεν καμοὶ" (It seemed to me) comes before it in the Greek text. It gives the impression that he investigated and then decided to write, a two stage process, whereas it seems clear that he is saying that he just decided to write closely to the gospels he had, a one stage process or decision.

I didn't find a really simple translation that didn't embellish the words; the best translation is probably this one:

The writer is simply saying that he followed the best gospels and writings closely. The other gospels and writings got their information from eyewitnesses and were accurately passed along. He has simply ordered them better.

He is truthful as far as it goes, but I suspect that he is leaving out that he also changed drastically the radically different narratives of Mark and Matthew to make them match.

Warmly,

Jay Raskin

mountainman

Thanks Dave31,

Informative section on ..... Jesus or Joshua?

Best wishes,


Pete