Malachi151

I see no reason for a formal debate. I've never had one here, and don't see their point. I'm not the authority on this, and its not about "you vs. me", its about the information. Why not just discuss the information in this thread or another one?

You have refused to present any case here, why not just present you case?

Debates are crap anyway. They are only good at determining who the better debater is, not which facts are correct.

judge

I invited you to start another thread earlier. Feel free to do so.

Yuri Kuchinsky

Better Greek?

So how does it go? According to the 2ST version of reality, "Mark" wrote the first gospel. Presumably, he was inspired and empowered by Christ, the Son of God, the Ruler of the Universe, and the Holy Spirit to write the first gospel for the Salvation of Souls and the Universal Enlightenment but... somehow they got the Greek grammar all wrong!

Still, undeterred by such difficulties, they seem to have spent the next 20 years taking an intensive Greek course, and finally did get it right with Matthew?! :angel:

Oh, yes, the version of history that only a University Professor can believe...

In real life OTOH, each of the gospels was a collective product -- the product of a community. So they simply used the dialect that was used by the community. It's a mistake to try to establish the directionality of dependence on this basis.

But if you _really_ want to believe that the community of Mark was a bunch of Aramaic speakers whose Greek was poor, then they should probably write the first version in their native Aramaic, and only then translate it (poorly) into Greek?

Welcome to the Aramaic priority camp then!

That's right, "improvement" is a relative term...

All literature that blindly accepts Markan priority, and never questions this premise, is pseudo-scientific.

Yuri.

Yuri Kuchinsky

Well, Johann, one doesn't really need to know all these languages and read 1000 books to understand how these things work.

There's lots of people who know all sorts of languages, but still they don't understand the first thing about history, and what's happening in real life...

The problem with formulating the Semitic priority theory is not really the linguistic abilities as such... There are two real problems, and they are the problems of NT scholarship in general -- not just in this particular area. It's a much bigger problem.

1. Resolving the Synoptic problem.

Because if you don't have a good understanding of this, then it's useless even to go into the Semitic priority theories. And the Synoptic problem is very far indeed from an accepted solution at this time.

The earliest proto-gospel was probably very short, and it's still embedded, in bits and pieces, in all 4 NT gospels. How can we reconstruct it? Is it even possible to do this?

2. Resolving the TC problem.

This is even a bigger problem than the previous. Because there's a lot more at stake.

The Hortian solution is a dead end IMHO. We need to go back to the Byzantine text, and then try to go even further back to Western/Peripheral texts.

So anyone's idea of a Semitic priority theory very much depends on how you perceive the Synoptic problem, and the TC problem.

Theorising about the Semitic priority can only be done _after_ the above two big problem areas are sufficiently clarified, and some sort of a consensus is reached.

Someone who comes along and tries to reconstruct "the Semitic originals" on the basis of the 4 Hortian Greek gospels -- which represent nothing more than a late 19th century idea of what the "originals" should have been, based on some pretty bad 4th/5th century manuscripts -- is most likely just wasting his own and everybody else's time.

As to the Peshitta Aramaic prioritists, they are still mostly in a pre-critical stage, I'm afraid... They tend to operate as if the last 200 years of biblical scholarship -- with all its admitted confusions and dead-ends, but also some real insights -- didn't really happen.

They have the Solution all right (their original Peshitta text), but still don't quite understand the problem that they were trying to solve. So it's the Solution in search of a problem, whereas it should have been the other way around.

Best regards,

Yuri.

spin

Yup.

Yup.

Waiting for content.

Still waiting for content.

Is there any content coming from you Yuri?

Guesswork as to the production of Mk won 't help you.

Nup, no content.

Not all literature accepts Marcan priority. And not all acceptance of Marcan priority is blind.

Positions that don't supply evidence are "pseudo-scientific". You haven't supplied any.


spin

Yuri Kuchinsky

Well, I find it kinda amusing that the University Professors have failed the Son of God and the Holy Spirit on their Greek competence test!

Yuri.

spin

And I find it amusing that you want to talk about anything but the topic.


spin

Chris Weimer

Yuri,

Do you think that most university-educated professors think that Mark "was inspired and empowered by Christ, the Son of God, the Ruler of the Universe, and the Holy Spirit to write the first gospel for the Salvation of Souls and the Universal Enlightenment"? If so, you're terribly wrong.

jgibson000

Who said or espouses the idea that Mark got "the Greek grammar" (?) of his Gospel all wrong?

More importantly, what is your evidence that those who hold to Markan priority have ever assumed, as you claim they do, that Mark was -- or even felt or acknowledged and proclaimed himself to have been-- constrained by any inspiration at all, let alone one that comes from the sort of being you say the Christ is? Or that "inspiration" by any source precludes infelicities of grammar?

Can you say "straw man"?

Seems to me that this is a version of history that only a self proclaimed, but in reality wholly unqualified, under-read, language lacking, agenda driven, guild hating, unpublished, uncredentialed, referee lacking, teaching job positionless, and demonstrably clueless, Canadian NT "scholar" would believe that university professors believe.

Would you care to give us the names of all these university professors who, according to you, accept the version of history you say they do?

Jeffrey Gibson

rlogan

Hmmm. I'd be interested in the midrash ideas of Duborg, but am wondering if wherever you got this observation from, Toto meant the septuagint instead of original Hebrew.

I know you've been around here watching closely enough to understand why that is more likely the case.