spin

Matthew -- book.
Luke -- redactor or editor or writer of this or that or the other.

The book doesn't really change and is a tangible entity. Your Luke is a weasel.

If you wanna start talking about Matthew the redactor or editor or writer then we start to run into a similar linguistic straight-jacket.

It's a bit like all this crap in the field of the Dead Sea Scrolls of talking about Essenes and sects: one projects these ideas onto their own thinking and risks the waylaying of the subject to talk rubbish for fifty years.

If we start with constraining ideas we can end up in never-never-land and not know better, interpreting through one's self-imposed filters.


spin

Ben C Smith

Matthew — book.
Luke — book.
Acts — book.

Matthew — redactor or editor or writer of the book of Matthew as we now possess it.
Luke — redactor or editor or writer of the book of Luke or of Acts as we now possess it.

If you can define the book (as we now have it), then you can define the editor responsible for that book (as we now have it). It is only when you start layering the book that you have to start specifying which redactor wrote what.

I certainly agree with that, and am all in favor of exposing needless assumptions.

Ben.

Solo

Fascinating exchange between Ben and spin. Kind of reminds me though of Arthur Koestler's golden rule on the conduct of intellectual debates. He said that for a conversation on the merits of the Bard's Richard III. to be meaningful, one must, on the mention of 'kingdom for a horse !', resist the temptation to discuss the fortunes of the King's Horse in the latest running of Derby.

Jiri

spin

So far, so good. But...

Multivalent terms are a sure formula for failure of communication. And, for you, the risk of collapsing them into "monovalent" references, even while telling yourself you understand the real situation.

We permanently work with the gospels as stratified works. Referring to "Luke" as you claimed to be the final redactor, you proceeded to treat him as someone who wrote or attenuated something. This tends to flatten the term and reify a single "author". You know better, but what do you communicate?

That's fine, but we are not really talking about assumptions. We are talking about the effects of what seems to me to be a sloppy use of a term, so as to inadvertantly give a false picture.

Remember my futile attempts to get people to use terms such as fiction, myth and fake in a more coherent scholarly way? The wayward use of terms shapes your ideas and your readers' understanding of them.


spin

Ben C Smith

What?

Not when we say: Matthew — book.

I communicated what was necessary for the point at hand. You are completely ignoring context.

Fiction, myth, and fake are defined words (I am a descriptionist, not a prescriptionist, BTW), and people on this board often use them contrary to their definitions. Matthew and Luke are personal names; any application these names have to texts is going to be a matter of convention.

Ben.

PhilosopherJay

Hi Tigers,


Quote:
Originally Posted by PhilosopherJay View Post #5932478 / #27
Tiger!
Actually, the text does not tell us that John and Mark were different people. The text is telling us that John and Mark are the same person. The text of Acts merely tell us that John was "also called Mark."

It is clear that when the text refers to John or when it refers to John, also called Mark, it is talking about only one man.

If I say that Barack Obama is also called "Mr. President," I am not saying that Barack Obama and Mr. President are two people. I am saying that the names Barack Obama and Mr. President are used to refer to the same person.

Likewise, I am known as Jay Raskin in ordinary life and Philosopher Jay on several internet websites. If someone says that Jay Raskin is also called Philosopher Jay, they are not saying that Jay Raskin and Philosopher Jay are two people, they are saying that Jay Raskin and Philosopher Jay are two names for one person.

In Acts 11:13 we have:
.

The text is not telling us that Simon and Peter are two people, it is telling us that Simon and Peter are two names for a single person.

Likewise, when the text tells us at 13:9: Once we take the text at face value and take the ordinary meaning as the actual meaning, we see that John and John also called Mark are meant to be the same person.

The text makes no attempt to distinguish the apostle John from someone else called Mark or John Mark. It does not tell us that John was from X and John Mark was from Y. When it states that John was also called Mark, it is simply adding to our information about John. There is nothing in the text to suggest that it is talking about more than a one person.

The text tells us a lot of things about John. Importantly, he accompanies Peter.
What we learn is that Peter and John are generally the main apostles.

The text tells us at 13:5 at he accompanied Barnabus and Saul also:The plain meaning of the text is that the same apostle John who accompanied Peter also accompanied Barnabas and Paul

Since the text repeats at least four times that John is also called Mark, it is obvious that the editor or author thinks this is important information for us to have. We have to ask why the text is giving us this information. Since there is nothing in the text that points for a reason for us to have this information, we have to look outside the text.

The only thing that a Mark is known for outside the text in the Christian community would have been writing a gospel. John is also known as writing a gospel. By stating that Mark is just another name for John, the inference that the reader is supposed to make is that the gospels of John and Mark were written by the same person.

This is the best explanation that I can come up with for an editor of the text repeatedly putting into the text the information that John is also called Mark. It fits all the facts in and outside the text quite well. I think we should accept it unless someone comes up with a better explanation.

Warmly,

Philosopher Jay (also called Jay Raskin)

spin

I don't know how to respond to that. Most of the question is missing.

If you have trouble with terms

Multivalent: "Having or susceptible of many applications, interpretations, meanings, or values." (OED)

For example, the use of Luke at one time to mean a redactor and at another to mean a writer of some bit or another or someone responsible for an interpolation or someone who edited (a portion of) the text somehow or even to mean a book.

"[M]onovalent" in quotes was used to describe the state of having one application, interpretation, meaning, value" in contrast to "multivalent"

When one uses multivalent terms without a context to make clear the value contained in that usage, you don't communicate.

(Well,... hear the one about the terrorist who got burnt lips from blowing up a car?)

When you use a term traditionally thought of as simple to understand, such as Luke the author of a gospel, with the knowledge of the multivalence, you risk shaping your own thoughts by the weight of tradition against your knowledge -- you risk collapsing it into a "monovalent" term with consequent effects on your thought and analysis.

Did any of that help to answer your bald "[w]hat?"?

I see you seeming to making a false parallel between an end product of sorts which we can call a "book" which we can name, say, "Matthew", and some bunch of scribes who participated at different times in the production of such a work. You don't end up with a Matthew, scribe.

You've complained when I used a term such as "earliest layers" of a text. But that's one way to talk about the strata of stratified works.

Here, on my original complaint, is your definition:

Luke in this context equals the author (or redactor, if you prefer), whether anonymous or eponymous, of the third canonical gospel and the Acts.

You simply reify here what you know is not correct. This Luke of yours is well, sometimes a redactor when you use the term and sometimes a writer. He is responsible for the gospel of Luke and Acts. He also wrote or manipulated information about John Mark.

But they are names of books to us. (Words often have homonyms.) In a scholarly discussion of the christian religion, when one uses Matthew or Luke, one can be coherent and talk of books or talk of people, but not both, and expect to communicate successfully. Context is all. You know that these are anonymous works, but by maintaining traditional names for sometimes authors of material in them or redactors of them or editors, or interpolators, you end up with a garbled transmission -- which I don't think is your intention.


spin

Ben C Smith

In the original context, it was patently obvious that Luke meant whoever wrote or included the bit about John Mark, and it was equally obvious that it did not matter one whit at which level of composition this writing or inclusion occurred.

Exactly.

Sorry, I am out of time for this discussion of nomenclature. Thanks for the clarification.

Ben.

spin

Well, I certainly failed to communicate.


spin

aa5874

John as found with Peter and James does not appear to be the same person as John Mark who was later just called Mark.

John with Peter and James was never referred to as John Mark or Mark.

John was introduced to the readers from the first chapter but John Mark was introduced only from the 12th chapter.

Ac 1:13 – Ac 3:1 –
Ac 12:12 –
It would appear to me that John Mark was not the same John referred to in the group with Peter and James. It will be noticed that the character called John in the early chapters of Acts was not designated a surname, the character was just called John and there are many references made to this John before John surnamed Mark was introduced.

If John Mark and John were the same person, then there would be no need for the author of Acts to specify that Peter was at the home of the mother John surnamed Mark when he had already introduced Peter and John since the very 1st chapter of Acts.

Now, the church writers have claimed that the author of gMark was a disciple of Peter, called Mark who did get his story about Jesus from Peter and then subsequently wrote gMark.

Eusebius on Mark in Church History 2.15.1 It would appear to me that the author of Acts is trying to establish or introduce this character called Mark to the readers.

It will be noticed that after referring several times to the character as John surnamed Mark, the author eventually just referred to the character only as Mark


Acts 15.37-39 The John found in the earlier passages of Acts of the Apostles before the character called John surnamed Mark was introduced is not the same person. John Mark in the story of Acts appears to be Mark, the so-called disciple of Peter who supposedly wrote the gospel called according to Mark.