Vorkosigan

Yes, and if we delete this, and delete that, we can.....make the hebrew bible sound exactly like the wizard of oz. Sounds like deletomania to me.

What are the grounds for making such deletions and adjustments. It appears....to bring the two sayings into alignment, and create multiple attestation where none exists. That both mention angels is culturally mediated coicidence, not direct link. In any case both go back to Daniel 7 and other Daniel "prophecies," where many of these elements can be found. Looking at them again:

1 Thessalonians 4:15 According to the Lord's own word, we tell you that we who are still alive, who are left till the coming of the Lord, will certainly not precede those who have fallen asleep. 16 For the Lord himself will come down from heaven, with a loud command, with the voice of the archangel and with the trumpet call of God, and the dead in Christ will rise first. 17 After that, we who are still alive and are left will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air. And so we will be with the Lord forever.
(NIV)

Matt 24:27 For as lightning that comes from the east is visible even in the west, so will be the coming of the Son of Man. (NIV)

Matt 16:27 For the Son of Man is going to come in his Father's glory with his angels, and then he will reward each person according to what he has done. 28 I tell you the truth, some who are standing here will not taste death before they see the Son of Man coming in his kingdom. (NIV)

Some of the elements Sanders points out are not really present. For eaxmple, in Matthew there is no "gathering of the elect." That is, as Thomas pointed out, in verse 31

"And he shall send his angels with a great sound of a trumpet, and they shall gather together his elect from the four winds, from one end of heaven to the other."

These passages are just riffs on Daniel, and any resemblance is due to their having a similar ultimate source: Daniel.

Vorkosigan

Amaleq13

I'll buy "shared theme" but "same saying" seems to me to require quite a bit more than exists in the texts.

Paul tells us why he believed the end was near and it was not because of anything a living Jesus taught. He makes it very clear that the end is obviously near because of the claims of those (including himself) who had witnessed the Risen Christ. The resurrected Savior was the first fruits of the general resurrection associated with The End.

These seem to me to be stock requirements of The End and hardly indicative of a direct relationship between the two.

This reflects a trend that has continued in Christianity until the present. The goalposts have to be kept moving or somebody is going to get called for Delay Of Game.

Young's Literal Translation has:

"for this to you we say in the word of the Lord"

How does Sanders determine Paul means this to indicate something a living Jesus said rather than something Paul (and his fellow believers) found in the Hebrew Bible (like Daniel as Vorkosigan suggests)?

Rick Sumner

Why would you suggest Matthew has "some" and Paul needs to address those who are no longer alive? Are they not changing something that predated them?

Sanders includes up to vs. 31 in his discussion. I can't help that Vinnie cut it short.

Touch blue, make it true? Let's see an argument to that effect we can take a look at.

Regards,
Rick Sumner

Rick Sumner

Sanders doesn't argue for an historical Jesus. He thinks the prima facie case is more than sufficient. Which points to Paul referring to Jesus.

You can't take Sanders' argument and then criticize it for failing to argue a point it isn't arguing. If we can start with that approach then I, for one, am really disappointed that Earl Doherty didn't prove unequivocally that penguins really do wear tuxedos.

He's reconstructing, not establishing existence.

Regards,
Rick Sumner

Amaleq13

Whether Jesus was historical is not actually relevant to my observation about Paul's words (according to YLT) nor to my question. Contrary to your apparent assumption, I'm not assuming a mythical Jesus while making the observation or asking the question.

Even if I assume a historical Jesus, the phrase Paul uses does not seem to require that I also assume he is quoting the living Jesus rather than referring to information obtained from the Hebrew Bible (ie "the word of the Lord"). I hadn't thought of this until now but we also need to consider whether this is another piece of information that has been directly revealed to Paul by the Risen Christ.

So, to get back to my question with an addition, how does Sanders' determine Paul is quoting the living Jesus rather than the Hebrew Bible or revealed knowledge from the Risen Christ?

It seems to me that both of these are viable alternatives to quoting the living Jesus given Paul's other references to Scripture and revealed information.

Vorkosigan

Yes, and that something is Daniel. It is up to you to show that a specific verse goes back to the HJ. The mere fact that Paul and Matthew are working with shared tradition does not mean that they go back to Jesus. It is more likely, since neither ever met Jesus, that they go back to a shared written source.

What for? We're all still waiting for you or any other exegete to show a reliable methodology that enables to link an idea/event/phrase back to the HJ. Merely claiming that something is "tradition" or predates the writer in question does not mean it goes back to the HJ. PREDATE does not equal HJ.

But go back to the list you made from Sanders (I am 200 kms from my copy, sorry).

Gabriel in Daniel, also Michael

13 "In my vision at night I looked, and there before me was one like a son of man, coming with the clouds of heaven.

Standard equipment for royal arrivals and assemblies throughout the OT.

Dan 7:10
Thousands upon thousands attended him;
ten thousand times ten thousand stood before him

Basic election promise, made at all rallies. No need for common source for this one.

In short, there is no reason to imagine this comes from anything but the OT.

Further, Matthew contains a clear reference to Daniel that is not in the "parallel" Pauline passage:

Matt 16:27 For the Son of Man is going to come in his Father's glory with his angels, and then he will reward each person according to what he has done.

That is similar to

Dan 7:10Thousands upon thousands attended him; ten thousand times ten thousand stood before him. The court was seated, and the books were opened.

The idea of "court" is reminiscent of the concept of reward and punishment in Matthew. "Coming in his father's glory" is also present in Dan 7:14.

In other words, the Matthew passage has a lot more in common with Daniel than it does with 1 Thess. It is far more likely that Daniel is its source, than some saying from a fictional character.

A further problem with your method of analysis is that it involves circular reasoning:

Thus if we ignore the apologetics and redactional tendencies of the author--that which we obviously should ignore--we're left with sayings that look remarkably similar.

How did you know what was redactional and apologetic unless you had already decided that the two sayings were similar? In other words, this method you've proposed is essentially deciding that two sayings are similar, and then eliminating what is different, and then announcing: Gosh, look how remarkably similar they are.

There is nothing wrong with this kind of literary insight. The problem arises when you decide that your insights are correct, whereas the literary insights of others -- such as MacDonald -- constitute "parallelomania." This just looks like special pleading to me, Rick.

Vorkosigan

Ted Hoffman

Amaleq
AFAI Can See, Vinnie makes no argument. He simply says that he accepts MA (as advanced by Sanders et al):
Vinnie writes:
He says he rejects MA when its based on attestation in more than one gospel.

In essence, vinnie finds Sander's arbitrary deletions fine: its ok to draw the eye where the arrows have hit and claim we have a 'hit'. On the other hand, since Vinnie's work is incomplete and has excluded vs 31 in Matthew, it seems Vinnie has not closely examined Sander's argument.

This is how Vinnie cites Sanders:
Vinnie, like many third-quest individuals, assumes the historicity of Jesus. But, in his work, he is yet to come to grasps with Double Dissimilarity, Contemporary Primary Data and Coherence Criterion and so on - he seems to have excluded linguistic and environmental test among his criteria.

Either way, I think he has to pick a Jesus somewhere. He can't argue about a historical ghost (and this is not an oxymoron) forever. And the menu is rich: the non-eschatological Jesus of the Jesus Seminar, Crossan's Cynic Sage or a disenfranchised Galilean or mediterranean Jewish peasant, Borg's social prophet, schweitzer and Kahler's Jewish apocalyptist (a self-deluded fanatic), Theissen's wandering charismatic, Sanders Jesus who is a Jew with a false eschatological vision, Jesus as a visionary radical and social reformer preaching egalitarian ethics to the poor, Galilean regionalist alienated from the elitism of Judaean religious conventions (like the Temple and the Torah), Bultmann's kerygmatic Jesus...I could go on and on. Either way, he has to get a handle on a Jesus so that we can go onto what he is on about.

This is leaving aside the fact that all the criteria are problematic and are all one-legged stools requiring deletomania here and there as a crutch, special pleading, using a HJ axiomatically, applying them gingerly and suspending them when convenient and so on and so forth.

But these I will show later.

I don't think the third quest is doomed to fail because of lack of data: I think it is doomed to fail because they want to preserve the academic bias for a HJ.

Rick
Your 'note' has zero probative value as far as Dennis MacDonald's criteria are concerned: your so-called 'note' is a content-free assertion without any support. Prove that MacDonald's criteria can be used to demonstrate that 'Wizard of Oz is directly related to Hebrew scripture--right down to 'Auntie Em''.

In fact, your claim shows you have no clear appreciation of MacDonald's criteria because Wizard of Oz, a fictionary tale written by Baum, L. Frank (1900), when juxtaposed with Hebrew scripture (I don't want to even mention its dating) would be patently absurd even to attempt to compare and worse still, if subjected to MacDonald's criteria of density, order, availability, distinctiveness, analogy and interpretability.

If you want to make good your 'note', provide your arguments for "direct relationship" between Hebrew scripture and wizard of oz in your next post. Otherwise, don't mention it again because its a false claim.

Sanders uses the word "same saying" not "same theme" as I have shown above.

The prophets and wandering apostles and whoever else collected contributions from people besides Paul promised the people l'eschaton. The oppressed people needed to believe - they needed hope.
This does not entail the existence of a Historical Jesus. Someone said, or wrote a falsity. The falsity could be about the alleged source (Jesus - in Matthew) or the message itself (Paul).

Writing "Jesus said" does not prove that "Jesus said".

Even Muslims awaited the coming of the Mahdi. It doesn't mean squat. Religious leaders, thinkers and junkies everywhere create carrots for the hungry and impoverished crowds to gaze at longingly. From the Doomsday cults to the Muslim fundamentalists who believe that they will get virgins when they die for their causes - its all over.

Some say "The Lord said", others write "Jesus said" others write "the teacher said". They create characters and put words in their mouth. It demands monumental naivety to conclude that because its written "X said", it means "X actually existed and said".

As Vork has argued, it could be Daniel (peshar, midrash, whatever you decide) and we can't rule out that they both picked these ideas from stories that were circulating at their times (troubled times of oppression).
My argument (which I will not make now) would be that if they picked them from a written text, we would find at least a phrase or two that are exactly identical. Otherwise, we will have to look at density of similarities between the two, interpteriveness, analogy and order.

Tell us what is, not what isn't - lest you be accused of prevaricating. What is it contigent upon?

And what is the nature of this 'common source'? oral or written? Does it have a name? dating?
You have also used the phrase "the sayings" - like Sanders. Same sayings or same theme? - make up your mind please.

Your statement above, contrawise, means you agree that Sanders arguments are unreasonable without the pressuposition that Jesus existed. But we have no reason to believe that Jesus lived.

Possible, but we have no reason to believe that because it clear that they are not relying on the same saying. It has not been demonstrated that its the same source they are using, so we can't discuss whether or not they made changes to any "common source".
End of story.

Without vs 31, elements 1 to 6 are not common in the Thessalonians passage and in Matthews. With vs 31, only elements 1, 2, 3 and 4 pass. And even then, we get "same theme", not "same passage".

Well, the so-called, prima facie case is not sufficient.
Does Sanders explain why he 'finds it sufficient' - or does he just assume it is because its palatable to his theological commitments?

Well, then his argument is fundamentally wrong. Invalid premises, invalid conclusions. Plain and simple.

Neither does Doherty prove unequivocally that there are WMDs in Iraq. Heh heh.

False analogy. If the third quest is based on a false Bultmannian dichotomy of a Kerygmatic Jesus and a Historical Jesus, and it seems it is, it will fail, just like the first and the second quest. The likes of Crossan and Meier and Sanders will wave their problematic methodologies and come up with outlandish Jesuses untill their twilight, which is fast approaching.

Reconstruction based on false assumptions yields absurdities and relies on special pleading, self-serving deletomania, selective thinking and gaping holes.
We see this everyday and we are becoming very tired of it.

If he wants to reconstruct, he must establish evidence. No evidence, no legitimate reconstruction.

ichabod crane

Yes, I would tend to agree with Jacob here. It certainly is not "the same saying", but there is a possibility of borrowing (Matthew from I Thessalonians), although I think that is less likely than just independent versions of the same kind of ideas from Jewish eschatology. The main reason I don't think Matthew borrowed from I Thessalonians is that Matthew doesn't have the distinction between dead saints being raised and living saints being transformed, which is quite central to early/middle Pauline eschatology (found also in I Corinthians 15). The five main points mentioned by Sanders would be pretty common themes within Jewish eschatology in the two hundred years leading up to Christ I would have thought (early examples of this are in Daniel, as Vork mentions). As Vork also mentions, the Olivet Discourse in Matthew quite explictly draws on the book of Daniel, but it is very likely that Paul was also familiar with the book, so there may be a common influence at that level, even though I Thessalonians does not so obviously refer to it directly.

There remains a possibility that the writer of Matthew was aware of I Thessalonians, which can't be excluded. I Thessalonians is quite early, whereas Matthew is later (much later if you accept the Jesus Myth hypothesis). There would have been time for I Thessalonians to circulate. But I find the evidence overall not convincing. In any case, why is this any problem for the Jesus Myth theory? You have Paul initially with a spiritual, heavenly Jesus expecting a coming, but Matthew later historicizes this to a return. Where's the problem?

A more significant issue is whether MacDonald's criteria have been validated empirically in a thoroughly scientific manner. For example, we could take instances from literature where we know borrowing occurred, and other instances when it didn't, randomise them and apply the criteria in a double blind fashion and determine if the method can discriminate borrowing from non-borrowing to a statistically significant level. If this hasn't been done, and I bet my bottom dollar it hasn't, then however impressive the criteria might appear, they are just another subjective approach like others. This is not to say that MacDonald's criteria are bad: I don't know anything much about them and they might be quite helpful. It just means that they shouldn't be elevated to the status of some kind of gold standard until they have been thoroughly validated in a proper scientific manner.

Ted Hoffman

IC,
Patience, patience Ichabod. Rick sumner has done it with the wizard of oz and Hebrew scriptures. We all anxiously await his presentation. Join the club.
<pulls a seat in the crowded room for Ichabod and motions him to sit down>

Rick Sumner

I'm not arguing that anything goes back to an HJ. I'm arguing that this tradition is multiply attested. You've just agreed with me.

I emphatically stated that this cannot be used to show that anything goes back to an HJ. I, in fact, stated that Sanders believes an HJ exists before he utilizes this passage.

This is naught but a strawman.

More strawmen.

Both sayings contain the similarities already outlined. More importantly, both state or strongly imply that the eschaton should have occurred in the first half of the first century CE.

Find that in Daniel.

If there is a common earlier ground, then I have made my case.

You're condemning both myself, and Sanders, for failing to make a case neither of us are trying to make. I haven't presented Sanders' argument that the saying goes back to the HJ (though he does present one, and if you'd like I could outline it, but it's purely for posterity's sake--such debates have worn their welcome with me), and haven't made one myself. All I have stated is that the tradition of an imminent eschaton is multiply attested by the sources outlined. It is. You've conceded this. I haven't stated that it goes back to anyone--I was even specifically vague, just to avoid confusion such as you're exhibiting. "Someone promised the eschaton," I said. I never specified who.

Tell you what, you use Sanders method on the Bible to reconstruct the Wizard of Oz. I'll use MacDonald's on the Wizard of Oz to show dependence on the Hebrew Bible. Let's see who has the more comprehensive case.

Let me know if you accept the terms. I propose two months to undertake it, as it's a fairly major task.

And special pleading only exists in strongly similar cases. Sanders method isn't remotely analogous to MacDonald's--they aren't preforming even remotely similar tasks. One is an historical reconstruction, the other is a literary analysis.

There really should be a fallacy for misuing fallacies.

Regards,
Rick Sumner