Adam

Those verses in #149 above that I identify as Q2, include Lk. 3:7-9, 16-17; 6:36-42, 7:18-23; 9:57-10:24; 11:1-4, 9-32; 12:2-7; 12:22-31,39-46; 13:34-35; 17:1-2. Consequently, Q1 can be identified as the less verbally exact Q verses Luke 4:1-2; 6:20-35, 39-40, 43-49; 10:1-12, 16; 11:33-35, 39-44, 46-52; 12:8-21,33-34, 49-59; 13:18-21, 24-30; 14:11,16-24, 26-27, 34-35; 15:4-10; 16:16-18; 17:3-4, 6, 23-37; 19:11-27; 22:28-30. These verses do not serve as disproofs of the Oral Tradition theory, but they bolster my eyewitness claims. These verses show the perspective of one man who had the same interests in the “Cynic” Jesus as the Jesus Seminar people. The direct speeches of Jesus start after Matthew (Levi) is called at Luke 5:27-28. Papias reported that he was told that the Logia was a gospel written by Matthew. (That it was a complete gospel is argued by James R. Edwards in the Hebrew Gospel & the Development of the Synoptic Tradition (2009), citing J. kurzinger and C. E. Hill.) If these verses of Q1 were supplemented by Q2 above and also the Twelve-Source, this would have been truly a complete gospel. This may have been known in antiquity as the Gospel of the Hebrews. Or that designation may be more appropriate for Proto-Luke after L was also added to it. Alternately, Edwards prefers to think the Gospel of the Hebrews was just L, and the known quotations from this Hebrews do come disproportionately from L.
These verses continue only as far as where the story is picked up in the Passion Narrative. This indicates that the Passion Narrative already existed from the earliest times, and no Q and very little L material was needed to supplement it. Each eyewitness added his own perspective with minimal extraneous additions.
I have picked these first three eyewitnesses as the most acceptable to the presuppositions of my audience here. The combined Proto-Luke and Passion Narrative give the "Gospel According to the Atheists" which also serves as acceptable to many modern-day Jews. These can't be dismissed as supernatural nor as outside the Jewish heritage.

Sheshbazzar

:hobbyhorse:

Adam

I'm glad you're the one living close to me. Let's get together some time. Better dealing with your name than with what goes into your namesake.

outhouse

Sounds good bud

I stopped there off the freeway tonight on the way home for a rest stop from san carlos [its where my girlfriend lives]

Adam

Best time is now.
My wife is in Arizona for a week or so, so no problem about whether she thinks the house is presentable.

Adam

My #151 above remains uncontested along with its preliminary posts (not to mention the whole thread Gospel Eyewitnesses, which everyone here hypocritically dismisses based on the very consensus scholarship they do not accept), so I guess I won this thread. Insults are not refutation.
http://www.freeratio.org/showthread....306983&page=23
See especially Post #555 in that thread about the "Gospel According to the Atheists".

Sheshbazzar

:horsecrap: :hobbyhorse: :deadhorse:





'Sheqer h'Sooce lee'tshuah...'

You lose.

outhouse

dont speak for everyone.

You case fails easily as I have pointed out.

the gospels were written to a gentile roman audience for the most part, less matthew but still has the roman foundation laid before him. many of these authors were romans.


jesus hated romans and so would have his followers. His few followers started the ball rolling and paul perverted the movement the followers were working on. before the unknown roman author's wrote anything.


when you figure out what we have are jesus enemies writing about jesus for their own benefit, your history could tighten up more a long the lines of reality.


Jesus was a poor hard working peasant, who probably ate better preaching for scraps of food then working sun up to sundown 6 days a week

Sheshbazzar

Ya know John, even if I don't agree with your HJ view, it still makes more sense than the horse crap Adam has been putting out.

PhilosopherJay

Hi Adam,

Thank you. This list is very helpful.

Lets begin at the beginning, Q2.

LK. 3:7-9

First we note that the eyewitness does not identify him/herself. The text itself makes no claim of being an eyewitness account or even a real account of a real event. What are the chances of this being a real speech? I think the chances fall between virtually none to none.

The orator, named John, begins by attacking his audience with the phrase, "You brood of vipers." Since he is going to start talking about children of Abraham, we may take it to mean that he is talking about Jews who believe themselves descended from Abraham. He begins by called the Jews who make up his audience the children (brood) of snakes (vipers). No educated orator, ancient or modern, would begin a speech by insulting their audience in such a way. At least no serious person trying to convince anybody of anything would begin this way.

We can well imagine the response of any real group of ancient Jews as being something like this, "This man has just called our holy ancestor, Abraham, a man chosen by God to represent him on Earth, a snake. Are we going to listen to this man speak even one more word? Are we going to allow this man to insult us all this way and allow him to live? No, any self respecting Jew would have immediately picked up a large stone, aimed it at John's head, and flung it with all their might.

We would expect any true eyewitness to be reporting the tragic death of John before the next sentence. We would expect any serious author trying to make us believe he was an eyewitness to explain why the Jewish audience did not immediately physically attack John after this extreme provocation. Rather it is clear from the first four words that the author is writing from the comfort of his home, not imagining a real or even possible scene and describing an event that he only wishes had happened.

The next sentence seems to be a rhetorical defense of John. It is, "Who warned you to flee from the wrath to come?" The author is implying that John had foreseen "the wrath to come" and had warned people to flee. That wrath probably refers to the Jewish-Roman war, either 67-73 or 132-135. The claim that John had warned anyone before the event is just a rhetorical device. The speaker does not present any evidence that he warned people to flee. Socrates, at his trial, presents evidence of his divine mission, by saying that his friend Chaerophon went to the oracle of Delphi. John presents no evidence to back up his claim that his prophecy was fulfilled. Any real Jewish audience would have expected and demanded the claim to be backed up with evidence: when did he tell them to flee? Who witnessed it?

The imaginary speaker then draws this absurd conclusion: Therefore bear fruits in keeping with repentance, and do not begin to say to yourselves, ‘We have Abraham for our father,’ for I say to you that from these stones God is able to raise up children to Abraham. 9“Indeed the axe is already laid at the root of the trees; so every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire.”

He is basically saying that your family doesn't matter. It does not matter that you were born a Jew, the only thing that matters is "bearing fruits in keeping with repentance". Why would Jews be called on to repent for being born Jews? This again makes sense after the war, when one could argue that the Jewish God helped the Romans to defeat the Jews for some offense. It does not make sense before the war. Jews were proud of their ancestry and being children of Abraham. That is what made them Jews.

The writer of this speech is not someone who was born a Jew and not someone that Jews would listen to.

It is hard to imagine this as a real speech. Imagine someone going to an Islamic village in Pakistan or Saudi Arabia today and denouncing the children of Muhammad and calling Muhammad a viper, or going to the streets of Salt Lake City, Utah and denouncing Joseph Smith as a viper.

Rather than take this speech as evidence of an eyewitness account of a real speech, we should take this as a Second Sophistic (Second century) rhetorical training exercise. In rhetorical training exercises, the idea was to make the worse argument the better. Takes the argument that everybody agrees is a great argument and show it to be a poor argument. That is what the writer is doing here. This speech bares the marks of such a student exercise. It is absurd and funny at the same time. As a rhetorical exercise, I would give it an "A." As a real speech, nobody would be insane enough to give it.

Before analyzing more of Q2, I pause for a response.

Warmly,

Jay Raskin