No Robots

The crucial acknowledgement is that the Gospels are Jewish literature. Their kinship to Talmudic midrash seems self-evident to me.

On the specific matter of the Gospels as midrash, see, for example, Birger Gerhardsson's The Testing of God's Son (Matt 4:1-11 & par): An Analysis of an Early Christian Midrash (reviewed here).

Jeffrey Gibson

It is? Why? I hope you are not saying this because you want to avoid being held responsible for the other claims you made about the Gospels -- which, BTW, seemed just as crucial for rebutting aaa man's claims about the type of argumentation that the Gospel authors use within their Gospels as was your assertion that the Gospels were Jewish Literature.

OK. So in what way is it self evident? And to which Talmudic Midrash in particular? Would you please cite which of these Midrashim you have in mind so that we can see for ourselves not only that, but how, the (as yet unspecified) kinship between the Gospels and the Talmudic Midrash is "self evident" when one compares them?

And by the way, wasn't your claim about what scholars say the Gospels are generically akin to, and how they are agreed that the Gospels are "akin" to Talmudic Misrash, not what is and is not "self evident" to you?

All Gerhardsson is intent to do in Testing is that the WTS is a midrash on themes found in Deut, 6-8. He does not deal with the question of the Gospels as midrash, and her certainly does not claim, even implicitly, that they are akin to Talmudic Midrash, does he?

You haven't read Gerhardsson, have you? Not have you read much, if any Talmudic Midrask either, correct?

Jeffrey

P.S. Here's the review you adduced. Maybe it's my old eyes, but I cannot see anything within it that attests to your claim that in his Testing of God's Son Gerhardsson was intent to show that all four Gospels were Midrash, let alone they were "akin" (just what does this mean in this context, anyway?) to Talmudic Midrash. Perhaps you'd be kind enough to point out to me where he does. Better yet, perhaps you'd point me to the pages in Testing itself where Gerhardsson does what you say he does. I have the book to hand so I can turn to it immediately and discover what you know I missed.

And then there's the other question of whether Gerhardsson is representative of the rest of NT scholarship on the claimed links between the Gospels and Talmudic Midrash.

******

Quote:

Copyright JSTOR. The Testing of God's Son (Matt 4:1-11 & par): an Analysis of an Early Christian Midrash, by Birger Gerhardsson, tr. by John Toy. ("Coniectanea Biblica, NT Series," 2:1.) Lund: Gleerup, 1966. Pp. 83. SKr 12 (paper). The idea of a school "milieu" has in recent years had a central place in Scandinavian gospel research. It is against this background that Gerhardsson, in his writings, has examined the Jewish and early Christian techniques employed in the transmission of tradition. The present study is an analysis of the temptation story against the back- ground of the midrashic technique used in pharisaic Judaism. Since this story, according to Gerhardsson, is of minimal historical value, it gives us an unusually good opportunity to observe the "work with the Word of the Lord" carried out by the early Christian scribes. The study is incomplete, since only four chapters out of eleven have been published. In the first two chapters the author takes the two main themes of the temptation narrative - Son of God and temptation - and examines them in their late Jewish context. In ch. 3 he analyzes the details of the narrative in the light of Deut 6-8 as this portion was understood in the late Jewish period. The fourth chapter deals with the basic idea uniting the three temptations to each other and to Deuteronomy, namely, "With your whole heart... soul... might" (Deut 6 5). In the chapters which are to follow in a later publication, the author will place his interpretation alongside the teaching of Jesus, and discuss it within the synoptic context as well as within the context of the NT as a whole. In the chapters published so far the author shows that the temptation story not only quotes words from Deut 6-8, but seems to draw extensively on these chapters as interpreted in late Judaism. Less convincing, however, is his attempt to tie the narrative as a whole to one particular verse, namely, Deut 6 5. The reviewer finds the idea of a school setting and of midrashic exegesis to be fruitful in examining the temptation narrative as well as other parts of the gospel material. Gerhardsson's approach, however, has some weaknesses. He does not give enough attention to comparing the temptation narrative and the midrash as to form, style, and exegetical method. Furthermore, he does not seem to take seriously the historical problems involved in using material from rabbinic Judaism to throw light upon passages in the NT. Had he done so, he would have had to give more attention to expository material in Philo and the Dead Sea scrolls. Finally, the author's stress in this study on the creativity of the individual scribes seems to weaken his theory, developed elsewhere (cf. Memory and Manuscript [1961], pp. 329, 335; Tradition and Transmission [1964], pp. 43-45), that the words of Jesus were transmitted in a rather mechanical way. Thus he draws too sharp distinctions between narrative material and the sayings of Jesus, and between traditions concerning the lesser known periods in the life of Jesus and his public ministry. The fourth gospel, for example, clearly shows that there was a creative use of the words of Jesus in the early church. It is, nevertheless, significant that Gerhardsson, together with other scholars, has pointed to the fact that there was in the early church a "scholarly" exposition of the OT as well as a conscious transmission and use of tradition.

No Robots

I am only responding to the op, which was a question about whether or not there are literary works similar in nature to the Gospels. It seems eminently reasonable to me to suggest looking at the Talmud.

Dealing here with mythicists, I point out the fabulation surrounding the biography of Hillel the Elder as comparable with fabulations about Christ in the Gospels.

The scholarly consensus certainly appears to me to be that the Gospels are Jewish literature. The only possible conclusion to draw from that is that they are thus akin to the contemporaneous Talmudic midrash. Here is one treatment of this subject:

The primary cultural milieu for the gospels is Jewish, and prominent among Jewish literary techniques of the early Christian period is midrash. This category has been applied to the gospels, with the suggestion that the source of much that they attribute to Jesus is a scripturally-inspired imagination rather than historical tradition. It must be insisted, however, (a) that 'midrash' (however that slippery word is defined) was far from being the dominant factor in Jewish writing about recent history, however strongly it may have influenced their retelling of ancient, sacred stories, and (b) that while the framework around which midrash was composed was a pre-existing sacred text, the framework of the gospels is a narrative about Jesus, into which scriptural elements may be introduced as the narrative suggests them, rather than vice versa. There may be much to be learned by comparing the gospel writers' methods with those of midrashists, but there is no meaningful sense in which the gospels in themselves can be described in literary terms as midrash.

He specifically says that part of the Gospel of Matthew is midrash. How could that not be akin to Talmudic midrash?

Same old, peevish, lame bullying.

aa5874

There is no evidence that the Gospels are Jewish literature.
The Gospels are stories about a God/man mythical figure. I do not think any Jew would have needed this God/man mythical before the fall of the Jewish Temple. No Jew has ever been identified as the author of any of the Gospels. There has been no known credible information that has shown that the Gospels were written in any Jewish language, or that any Jew read the Gospels in the 1st century.


The two prominent Jewish writers of the 1st century show no influence of the Gospels on Jewish tradition.

The Gospel literature had influence on the Greeks in the 2nd century, the earliest texts of the Gospels are found written in Greek.

The Gospels appear to be Greek literature about a God/man mythical figure that lived on earth during the days of Pilate.

Jeffrey Gibson

Why? It's at least 300 to 400 years later than the Gospels?

Yes. But, as I've asked, and you twice now have dodged answering, is the scholarly consensus also that the Gospels are "akin" to Talmudic Midrash? Do you or do you not know this as a fact, not as a speculation?

That would be the only possible conclusion to be drawn If and only if Talmudic Midrash was the only form that Jewish literature took in the first century and that Jews, let alone those of the 'am ha-aretz, composed in. Is it? And Talumdic Midrash is hardly contempraneous with the Gospels.

Umm, and this is supposed to support your claim??:huh:

The issue was the whole of Matthew's (and all the other Gospels as well) Gospel, not a part (11 verses!) of it.

Since you haven't yet defined "akin" (let alone "midrash"), it is impossible to answer. But let's note that you are engaging in gross petition principii in assuming that whatever first century midrash was, it was the same as 5th-6th century CE midrash.

Same old, peevish, lame bullying.[/QUOTE]

And the same old resort to characterizing my question, rather than answering it -- which translates to "no, I haven't, but I don't want to admit this fact because then I'd be admitting I'm talking through my hat and I haven't a leg to stand on".

Interesting.

How does this insistence on making claims about what an author whom you haven't read says and/or making authoritative pronouncements about the characteristics of a type of literature with which you are not directly familiar (and know, I'll wager, only through Brunner's dated and anti-semitic "scholarship") make you any different from such under informed "MJ" proponents as Pat Cleaver who pose as having knowledge they clearly don't possess and write about things they haven't read?

Be that as it may, let's move on. May we now have some supporting evidence for your claim that there is a scholarly consensus that the Gospels were produced by the 'am ha-arez?

Jeffrey

No Robots

Prior to being written down, the Talmud existed as oral literature, much of it coming into existence in the time of Christ.

Again, follow the chain of logic. The consensus is that the Gospels are Jewish literature, and originate in the same time and place as much of the Talmud. Both have the same literary foundation, and a principal part of this foundation is midrash. I see nothing controversial in this at all.

Both the Gospels and much of the Talmud originated as oral literature in the same time and place using much the same literary techniques, including midrash.

The Gospels have midrash, but that does not make them wholly and exclusively midrash. As I said in my first post, the Gospels have certain elements which make them utterly unique. But their closest literary connection is definitely with the Talmud and in particular its midrashim.


You are confused here. I wrote that the Gospels are Jewish literature akin to Talmudic midrashim, and that they are novel in that they originate among the ammé haaretz and in that they concentrate exclusively on the person of Christ. If I say that the novels of Dostoyevsky are akin to those of Tolstoy, I am not saying that they are the same thing.

You are ignoring, for some incomprehensible reason, that the written Talmud was originally oral.

I have said before that I will not stoop to responding to your bullying in thread. If you wish to discuss my knowledge of Gerhardsson, please feel free to start a new thread on that subject.

Maybe you want to take this up with ha-Galil online, which features Brunner's work on anti-semitism. Or perhaps with Le Bulletin Trimestriel de la Fondation Auschwitz, whose latest number is a special edition on Brunner (announced here, pdf, p. 5).

Is there anyone who asserts that the Gospels originated among the learned? No, the consensus is that the Gospels originated amongst Christ's followers, who were ammé haaretz. As Paul Johnson (History of Christianity, p. 31) states:

His real appeal was to ordinary, uninstructed Jewish lay opinion, the Am Ha-Aretz, the 'people of the land' or lost sheep, especially to the outcasts and the sinners for whom the law was too much. This was Jesus's constituency.

aa5874

Again, there is no evidence or information available to show that there were followers of Jesus before the Jesus stories were written. None.

Paul Johnson's statement cannot be supported by facts, maybe his imagination. The information given by Paul Johnson can only be found in his head.

There are no known written information, external of apologetic sources, to suggest that uninstructed Jewish people during the days of Pilate were worshipping or believed in a man called Jesus who could save them from their sins.

How would Jesus save a Jew from sin? Through what means did Jews come to realise Jesus could save them from their sins while the Jewish Temple was still standing?

Paul Johnson's statement is just a highly speculative faith based opinion based on nothing but his imagination.

Ben C Smith

I completely agree that this maneuver is an end run around the views of his opponents. It is the least convincing of his arguments, and amounts (IMHO) to defining the term sui generis differently than his opponents would.

However, your claim, the claim that I was responding to, was not that Burridge was incorrect but rather that the sui generis position was a consensus. It once was (following Bultmann), but no longer is. Even if this change is the result of a sloppy argument, it remains the case that the consensus no longer exists.

But it turns out that the change is based on far more than sleight of hand with definitions. The heart of the book is an aspect-by-aspect comparison of the gospels with features of the ancient bioi. Only in the category of assigned title do the gospels appear to differ in any significant respect from the bioi.

He fleshes the nature of this overlap out in great detail and, as far as I am concerned, he is correct. Do you disagree with him? If so, why?

If Burridge were in dialogue with mythicists, this might be a legitimate question. As things stand, I do not think he is; he is in dialogue with Bultmann (and those in his vein).

If you have a critique of the heart of his argument, namely the various aspects of comparison with the bioi, I would love to see it. I really would.

Yes, placing the gospels into a special category of their own has always held a special appeal for many Christians.

Ben.

Ben C Smith

I am not sure what you mean by modernly. I hope you mean merely what the most recent majority view (it probably falls short of a true consensus) is; I hope you do not mean which modern genre the gospels belong to.

The view espoused by Burridge and so many after him (and by several before him, including Talbert) is that the gospels belong to the category of ancient βιοι, or lives. (A βιος is not a modern biography, though that is a term often used to translate it.)

This was once, BTW, well nigh the universal consensus, but was usually assumed instead of argued. Then (to oversimplify a bit) along came Bultmann with his kerygma package, and suddenly the gospels were no longer βιοι, but rather belonged to their own genre (sui generis). (Many of the assumptions that went into this determination, including the emphasis on the shaping of the gospels by oral tradition rather than by authorial redaction, are now pretty roundly rejected.)

Eventually voices of dissent were registered (Talbert and others), and then Burridge wrote his book on the subject; and now the whole field has shifted. Where it was once permissible to assume (without argument) the sui generis model, now it is more common to assume (without argument) that the gospels are ancient biographies.

Toto wondered aloud what the point of all of this was; to which I wonder why there must be a point beyond the knowledge itself. Genre is pretty interesting (to some of us, at any rate) in its own right.

But I do think there are both implications and nonimplications, so far as the usual debates on this forum are concerned, to the view that the gospels are βιοι. For example, I think this determination tells us that the authors of the gospels thought that Jesus really existed and did many or most of the things attributed to him; IOW, Mark was not writing what he knew to be, start to finish, an ahistorical allegory or midrash. Yet it does not directly prove that Jesus existed, since we have ancient βιοι for people now considered mythical (Romulus, for example).

Ben.

gurugeorge

Bearing in mind that the historical entity Christians honestly thought existed was a miracle-working God-man, and that the assumption that there must have been a plain old non-miraculous human being behind that (to us moderns, evident) myth is a modern assumption based on a modern concept of "historical" that implicitly takes for granted the general position of science that miracle-working god-men can't possibly exist; and bearing in mind also that that assumption (of an actually-existent human being behind the evident myth) has to be argued for on independent grounds before any details about an actually-existent human being can with any rational grounding be teased out of the evidently mythical biography of a miracle-working god-man.

Just as a matter of interest, how and why is Romulus considered mythical? And do the relevant academics think there might have been a "real Romulus" behind the Romulus myth? And if they do, to what extent is the Romulus myth as exemplified in his biography reflective of what the "real Romulus" might have been, said and done?