Amaleq13

It is a factor about the Gospels that, along with the other factors described leads me to consider them unique.

I'm assuming you meant "earlier" sources and, yes, I have clearly included that as one of the characteristics that lead me to consider the Gospels as unique.

As you well know, the author of Mark starts his story by identifying it as "gospel".

I accept the basis for this scholarly consensus. I rely primarily on Kloppenborg's description and explanation of the various relevant theories.

It is also not the only factor I described. My conclusion is based on the unique collection of features.

As Toto has already noted, one can pick individual features and find parallels elsewhere but this is about the entire body of evidence that lead to my conclusion.

How many of the other features are also included?

You seemed to understand earlier that there is no single factor that results in my conclusion. It makes no sense to address the factors individually if you understand that it is there collective existence that lead to the conclusion.

Asking obviously ridiculous questions (eg Mark not gospel?) and ignoring what has already been established (eg no individual factor but a collective of factors resulted in the conclusion) is generating a growing suspicion that your apparent desire to honestly understand the basis for my conclusion was disingenuous. Please disabuse me of this notion by avoiding such nonsense in the future.

Amaleq13

I've been considering this post and I think you may be correct.

Rather than describe the Gospels as unique in arguing against Rick, I should have stated that none of his examples appeared to be sufficiently similar to warrant the conclusion that the author(s) intended their efforts to be interpreted literally.

Rick Sumner

You're missing my point, so I'll try to clarify.

None of these pieces of evidence--the points you give for your argument--are sufficiently interrelated as to present a unified picture of uniqueness.

Why, to use an example neither of us have vested interests in on other threads, can I not compare Matthew's use of prophecy with the pesharim? His Passion with midrash? The Passion isn't midrash, despite frequent misusues of the term, and Matthew isn't pesharim in the strict sense, but they still provide solid points of comparison--this despite the fact that overall they are much different works.

That they are unique in a combination of unrelated elements doesn't have a lot of cumulative force. Almost every book ever written is unique in some regards. The way you employ "unique," you make it sound as though nothing can be used as a point of reference for them, and thus they are exempt from an expectation of parallelism in contemporary texts, yet this isn't true. To continue with my earlier example, Matthew uses prophecy in a way very similar to the pesharim, and the Passion is very similar to midrash--they *are* valid comparisons, and they *aren't* unique, and this enjoys about as close to unanimous acceptance as you're ever going to find in this field. By suggesting that we can't find points of comparison, you've accorded the gospels a special status, but it's a status they don't deserve, and that they haven't been accorded since the enlightenment.

Regards,
Rick Sumner

Amaleq13

This makes no sense to me. I've already made it quite clear and you appeared to understand that no single piece of evidence is sufficient for me to consider the Gospels unique. It is the entire body of evidence that leads me to my conclusion. The "sufficient interrelated" nature of this body of evidence is the fact that it is all found in the Gospels.

An elephant is defined by a specific set of characteristics that make it a unique animal. This is true even if you can find other animals that have one or more of the characteristics. What makes it a unique animal is the presence of all the characteristics.

I agree that this is a valid comparison but it is still only a comparison of a single aspect of the Gospel story.

Apparently you did not read my most recent post from a few hours before yours. I have attempted to clarify my position in light of jbernier's observations.

I clearly have not suggested that there are no points of comparison. In fact, I clearly supported Toto's post to that effect.

What I have questioned is the jump you made from specific comparisons to claiming knowledge about the intent of the author. None of the examples you offered appeared to allow for such a claim. We know the intent of Josephus because he explicitly states it.

We agree that Matthew has changed the original story and created additions but you insist he did this to deliberately deceive his audience into considering his story as a record of history. I see no reason to make this assumption and it seems more likely to me that his audience was completely aware that their fellow believer had created a story to express their beliefs. If you return to the original thread, I have a couple of questions along these lines for you. I would repeat them here except that would defeat the purpose of the new thread.

Frankly, I'm not sure what more can be accomplished in this one as it is.

Rick Sumner

I hadn't when I wrote the last one.

This is the impression you were leading to on the other thread, and the reason I was so puzzled by your claims of uniqueness. Now perhaps we can clarify a little more--what points of commonality would a narrative have to have to suffice as analogous for the purposes of establishing the intent of the author?

This is a strawman. What I've claimed is that you have not made the case that they were not intended to be taken literally. It is necessary to your argument regarding Matthew that we accept they were not intended to be taken literally--you need to make that case. Even if you preface them with "if." But that's an issue for the other thread.

Josephus' primary intent was to be an apologist. He doesn't state that.

No, what I insist is that there is absolutely no reason to presume that he didn't. I'm waiting for you to come up with one.

There is reason to make this assumption though--people deliberately deceived their audiences like that frequently. They still do. Probably always will. Deliberately deceiving the audience is "not inconsistent with" either position, to steal the ambiguous jargon of many a crime show.

I'm on my way out shortly, I'll look at them when I get back.

We've clarified a position you wouldn't offer anything more than "Show me something similar" in explanation of in the other thread--I'd suggest we accomplished all kinds here.

Regards,
Rick Sumner

Amaleq13

I can't think of any but I think I already made that pretty clear. As I stated in the original thread, I don't see how one can reliably establish the intent of an author unless the author explicitly states it. We can only offer subjective perceptions of what "seems" to have been the intent. The initial argument for a 1st century dating of Matthew, from the original thread, was based on the assumption that the author intended the work to be understood literally. My response was to question that assumption and offer some of my reasons for thinking otherwise. Subsequently, the burden of proof was shifted from the initial claim to my response to that claim.

Then you have no basis to make the claim with such certainty.

Josephus, in the preface to Antiquities, explicitly states his reasons for writing both Wars and Antiquities. Whether you believe he had an unspoken agenda is irrelevant to the fact that these explicit statements make it quite clear that he primarily intends his works to be taken literally. This is precisely what is absent from Matthew's story.

That many people have done something is not sufficient to justify accusing a particular individual.

Who did the author's audience believe wrote the story?

Rick Sumner

That you can't think of any leaves you with a problem. We are looking, as noted, for characteristic X (henceforth C-X). For C-X to be viable, it needs to be testable. For it to be testable, C-X needs to be compared to narratives in which the intentions are known. I would like nothing better than to compare the gospels with a wide swath of literature--with fiction, such as Seneca or Euripides, with histories like Herodotus' or Josephus, with religious texts as diverse as Homer, Philo, the Talmud, the Pseudepigrapha and the Dead Sea Scrolls, with the philosophy of Plato and Aristotle. The gospels weren't written in vacuums. It is against this much wider backdrop they must be read.

Yet by a plea to uniqueness, you have rendered your argument unfalsfiable. An unfalsifiable argument can be dismissed on those grounds alone--a hypothesis must be testable to be valid. Except it's not quite unfalsifiable.

Everything you have suggested might be C-X can also be said of at least one other source whose intentions are known.

What makes Matthew different from Luke?

It is not enough to note that Luke explains how it is to be taken and Matthew doesn't. Matthew doesn't say one way or the other, and thus nothing can be gleaned from that--Matthew does not say X, that doesn't mean that Matthew means Y. Matthew leaves the question, Luke may provide the answer.

Luke, like Matthew, heavily redacted his sources, was guilty of the "dishonesty" you find so unlikely, and presents a narrative strikingly similar in presentation to Matthew's. These are the factors you have suggested indicate intention. Luke's intention is clear.

C-X needs to be something found in Matthew, but not in Luke. Something that indicates Matthew's intentions, and indicates those intentions are divergent from the intentions of Luke. The cumulative weight of C-X needs to outweigh the similarities between the narratives.

That Matthew does not state his intentions is insufficient. That provides you with an ad hoc of possibility. But all possibilities are not equally probable, and given the similarities between the two, your position would be the lesser indicated, unless you can provide distinctions to outweigh that.

Regards,
Rick Sumner

Amaleq13

I thought that was already pointed out by jbernier and acknowledged by myself in this post. As I have repeatedly acknowledged, specific points of comparison can be made. What you have yet to establish, absent the requested additional explanations, is that any specific points of comparison allow one to reasonably assume the author intended his work to be taken as history.

More significant, I think, is the absent factor I clearly indicted was the only truly reliable one (ie explicit statement of intent by the author). I think an explicit reference to sources might also imply an intent to convey history but that might depend on the sources identified.

The author of Luke offers both of the above. There can be no serious question whether this author intended his work to be taken as history.

It is more than enough to conclude that the intent of the author of Luke to convey history can be reliably determined while that of the author of Matthew cannot. If you recall, that is essentially what I said in my very first response to ichabod.

Yet you have claimed you have sufficient reason to assume the author's intent was to be taken literally. That is why I eagerly await your answers here so that I might better understand your position. Given how often you have reminded myself and others of the need to support one's claims, I'm certain you are just as eager to do so, yourself.

Absent an explicit indication, yes, the factors I identified appear to me to only indicate that the author's intention is to convey his beliefs. With an explicit indication, they suggest the author is also intending the narrative to be accepted as reliable history.

The similarities indicate both authors were creating stories but the rather significant difference only allows us to conclude that Luke's author also deceptively intended his story to be taken as history. You have claimed this is true of the author of Matthew as well and I am in the process of trying to figure, in the original thread, out how you reach that conclusion absent the indicators present in Luke.

It seems obvious to me that your position carries a greater expectation of positive/supportive evidence given the active nature of the intent while mine is less likely to include such evidence given the more passive nature of the activity. Your conception of the author's intent is one actively trying to convince others who do not share his beliefs that his fabricated claims are reliable history while my conception of the author's intent is one expressing the shared beliefs of his own community in narrative form. Yours attempts to instill a set of beliefs while mine reinforces existing beliefs. My author and his community start from a position of faith that, regardless of the historical accuracy of any particular narrative depiction, holds the beliefs expressed in the story to be of primary significance.

I look forward to your explanations in the original thread since they have the potential to significantly alter my current understanding of the Gospel attributed to Matthew and, I'm assuming, that of the one attributed to Mark as well.

Rick Sumner

Your arguments ran to the effect that you don't think Matthew would make things up wholesale--you didn't think he would be dishonest.

Yet this is clearly untrue--we know of someone who did exactly that. Writing exactly the same type of book.

If Luke used Mk. and Q to create a narrative he intended to be taken historically, you need to demonstrate that Matthew is doing something differently in order to negate the validity of that.

The only solid piece of evidence we have, using your rather stringent criteria of "uniqueness," runs my way. But the parallel is remarkably strong, which is the product of your rather stringent criteria.

Matthew doesn't say one way or the other. Of sources we can be sure on, his style most closely resembles an individual writing historically. It follows reasonably that it is most likely he is doing likewise. I'm not claiming "proof," I'm not claiming certainty. I'm claiming a greater probability than you've got. I've got a parallel, using an unreasonably stringent criteria. Where's yours?

That he doesn't specify does not mean that all possibilities are equally likely. It means we need to look at other sources to see what it most closely resembles--what it has the most in common with, and with what style of narrative it best fits.

I haven't read the other thread in days. I'm probably not going to.

Regards,
Rick Sumner

Amaleq13

I saw no evidence supporting your claim that the author was intending to deceive. You can clear this up in the original thread.

Not "exactly" and it is only the significant difference of an explicitly identified intent that makes it possible to conclude that the author intended his fabricated story to be taken as reliable history.

The only reason one can conclude that the author of Luke intended his work to be taken as reliable history is his explicit statement to that effect. With no similar claim to be found in Matthew, there would appear to be no basis for the generalization.

You have jumped from Luke's explicit statement to his "style" but there is still no legitimate similarity. It has been noted by many scholars that the author of Luke, unlike the other Gospel authors, appears to be intentionally copying the style of known historians. In fact, Carrier makes what I consider a very compelling argument that the author of Luke is directly reliant upon Josephus in this article.

Again, this is all very good evidence to conclude that the author of Luke intended his story to be accepted as reliable history but it does not appear relevant to Matthew since it involves evidence unique to Luke.

Then it is a good thing I bumped it back to the top before it disappeared and you forgot entirely.