Vinnie

>>>1. The earliest reference to the twelve, in Paul, presents them as witnesses >to the resurrection, not disciples of Jesus. Moreover, this reference is >exclusive of Peter. >


First off, I demonstrated this is not exclusive to Peter. Second, Paul does not say they were "not disciples". That is just poor reading comprehension. We argree that he presents them as witnesses to resurrection.


>2. The lists of the twelve in the various gospels do not agree with each
>other.

This is irrelevant. Verbatim agreement is not required for historicity. Ask a real historian. There is quite a bit of overlapp. Membership fluctuations are accoounted for.

>
>3. Other sources, including the Talmud, and GThomas, inter alia, present >Jesus as having a smaller circle of disciples.
>

The Talmud? Is this a joke? GThomas presents no such thing. I've read Thomas close to a dozen times, examined all of its verses for possible dependence on the synoptics and so on. Thomas mentions a half dozen names. Where in Thomas is Jesus presented with a smaller circle of disciples? If there is a reference I missed it. I doubt I did, however.

>4. The earliest source that presents the twelve as disciples of >Jesus is >Mark. Not great testimony, IMHO.

Mark mentions them and Luke very well may preserve and indepdnent list ( see Meier) and Q may very well mention the Twelve as Paul. Likewise, Paul tells us that the group existed in the fifties though he tells us no details about them.


>5. All of our traditions present Jesus as including women among his inner >circle, but none of the lists of 12 include women.

Modern scholars and their ignorance and political correctness with an egalitarian Jesus with 2000 values. Of course Jesus had women followers. This DOES NOT mean he did not call the Twelve or an all male Twelve. Jesus was a first century Jew.

>>> 6. As already noted, the number is too significant -- it seems to imply a >reconstituted or alternative Israel. Not that it's impossible that Jesus >himself had such an agenda . . . but the number itself provides us with the >motivation for fictionalizing.

Jesus the Jew who may have seen himself as an agent of of the Jewish God? The same Jesus that conducted a ministry specifically to Jews and whose followers settled in Jerusalem after his death?

As far as Kirby goes, if we were to apply the Twelve, the Seven, The three and so on to my methodology, the Twelve would come out much better than all the other traditions.

What is Kirby's methodology? That weshould consider the seven or the three is meaningless. What does the consideration lead to? have they been tested according to any theoretical Jesus methodology? Have they been compared, criterion to criterion to the twelve?

You have raised one possibility against the Twelve: the number is highly symbolic and in that light may have been created. Hardly the casting doubt and adressing of my points as you suggest it is.

If you or any scholar at X-talk has anything of substance to offer against the historicity of the Twelve aside from this old list I've shattered a number of times from Arnal or whoever its from, feel free to present the evidence.

Vinnie

Vinnie

Oh yeah, this very thread shows that Mark did not like the Twelve. He maligned them. Yet this hostile witness presents Jesus as calling and commissioning the Twevle. If my reconstuction of Mark not liking Peter and the Twelve is correct, we have, contra Arnal's opinion, great testimony from Mark. It meets the "hostile witness" or "common to friend and foe" criterion.

Vinnie

Vorkosigan

No, it does not. Your view already contains the assumption of historicity. Therefore, if Mark is hostile, it can only confirm history. If Mark is not hostile, it also confirms historicity (independent witness and all that). There is no standpoint from which you can escape this fundamental problem with your approach, that historicity is an axiom assumed, not a conclusion demonstrated.

Looking at Mark, I see no history whatsoever. By Mark's time the disciples of Jesus are firmly entrenched in the tradition. Indeed, all sides derive legitimacy from them, as both the Gnostics and the Orthodox claim to be working from traditions handed down by Jesus' followers. Mark is simply playing with traditions he has. As Carr noted in the earlier thread, Mark's portrayal of the disciples is not merely negative, it is fundamentally contradictory. It is in fact incoherent. This is because the 12 is theological invention.

The points of Peter Kirby and William Arnal are so subtle they slide right past the sledgehammer of historicity you are wielding. Peter's comment about women is a good example. Your reponse was:

"Modern scholars and their ignorance and political correctness with an egalitarian Jesus with 2000 values. Of course Jesus had women followers. This DOES NOT mean he did not call the Twelve or an all male Twelve. Jesus was a first century Jew."

This simply evades Peter's main point, which is: several streams of traditions about who and what Jesus early followers were exist. Further, we know that there was a later church agenda to wash women out of the tradition. So one has to ask, given these two circumstances, how any idea of an all-male 12 can date back to some HJ. It does not describe what others see as the reality of early Christianity. The prominent appearance of women in the Gnostic documents and in the resurrection fantasies is not a creation of some urgent 20th century egalitarianism, it is a fact of early Christianity that you must deal with. You are correct to note that because women are prominent that does not rule out The Twelve. But that is not the point. Peter's point is that the early Church, with its emphasis on the role of women, and its diversity of female roles and female influence, does not look like a place where an all-male inner circle would appear. Instead, this looks like a later tradition from when men were struggling to stick women back in their place.

The lack of rich comparative perspective in your thinking is another problem. Jesus may have been Jewish but he was also human, and sexual egalitarianism combined with sexual aceticism is a very, very common feature of emergent cults the world over. Later traditional institutional patriarchical rule stamps out the early freewheeling days. So it would again, based on this, be unusual if Jesus had appointed an all male inner circle to run the show. People are not culturebots. Saying Jesus was a first century Jew says absolutely nothing about what he might do. It doesn't even describe his identity in any analytically meaningful way.

A third problem with the all-male inner show is that in itself it is a microcosm of the institutional church, and thus, being its reflection, ought to be suspicious as a justificatory strategy for an institutional church, which emerged later. Thus, there are many reasons why one might be suspicious of this idea of the 12 being from Jesus.

At another point you argue:

• Mark mentions them and Luke very well may preserve and indepdnent list ( see Meier) and Q may very well mention the Twelve as Paul. Likewise, Paul tells us that the group existed in the fifties though he tells us no details about them.

The mechanical historicism underlying this type of thinking is scary. Goodacre's recent book has pretty much convinced me that Q is a chimera and even the 3SH is wrong. Q simply cannot be relied on the way you do. Further, for you to claim that because Paul and Luke both mention the 12, they are the same entity is to simply assume what you must prove. This is aside from the fact that the celebrated passage in 1 Cor where this occurs shows every mark of being an interpolation, from non-Pauline language to historical anachronisms. Finally, as Amaleq and many others have noted, Paul's langauge clearly indicates, in the most sensible reading, that Peter is not a member of the 12. At no time do you show any sensitivity to the complexity of the issues you are dealing with here.

For example, on this same topic, you argued:

"First off, I demonstrated this is not exclusive to Peter. Second, Paul does not say they were "not disciples". That is just poor reading comprehension. We argree that he presents them as witnesses to resurrection.

"Poor reading comprehension." No problem then. Here is the passage from the tendentious NIV.

• "3For what I received I passed on to you as of first importance[1] : that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, 4that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures, 5and that he appeared to Peter,[2] and then to the Twelve. 6After that, he appeared to more than five hundred of the brothers at the same time, most of whom are still living, though some have fallen asleep. 7Then he appeared to James, then to all the apostles, 8and last of all he appeared to me also, as to one abnormally born."

Which line in here presents the 12 as apostles of the HJ appointed by the HJ, or even recognizes that they are all male?

Not one.

In fact, this passage specifically separates the 12 from the Apostles, taking the most natural reading of the order that Paul gives. Thus, it is perfectly reasonable to see the 12 in Mark as theological back projection. The only evidence that Paul offers is that there was some institution called the 12 in Jerusalem when this passage was written. We do not even know if there were actually 12 people in it, since institutions that evolve by tradition frequently do not have firm member numbers (for example, how many schools play Big Ten football? Eleven!). As Peter noted, "12" as a number is so suggestive of numerological symbolism it is automatically suspect.

Further, the silence in Galatians on the 12 and Paul's attitude toward Peter and James in that mysterious and aggressive letter are also marks against that tradition. If the hand of the HJ appointed Peter, how could Paul possibly oppose him, especially, as he avers, in public in the confrontation in Antioch? Nothing in the situation in Galatians suggests that Peter and James have any mandate from Jesus, or belong to some larger group. Indeed, Peter, James and John derive their status from being "reputed" Pillars of the Church, not appointees of the HJ.

• GThomas presents no such thing. I've read Thomas close to a dozen times, examined all of its verses for possible dependence on the synoptics and so on. Thomas mentions a half dozen names. Where in Thomas is Jesus presented with a smaller circle of disciples? If there is a reference I missed it. I doubt I did, however.

Again you attempt to dismiss with rhetoric what you cannot win by argument. You actually agree with Peter than Thomas does not mention many names -- a half dozen. Does this collection appear to have a fixed membership by appointment? No. Does it appear to be a collective and recognized body? No. So, Peter's point is clear. When we actually examine what we have, the firm outline you assume, and then go on to discover in every document you look at, does not exist. The reality is more complicated.

You then go on to dismiss Peter's comments which not only have you not dealt with, you haven't even grasped...

• You have raised one possibility against the Twelve: the number is highly symbolic and in that light may have been created. Hardly the casting doubt and adressing of my points as you suggest it is.

It is clear that you are not willing to see the evidence for the highly ambiguous and contextual evidence that it is, and for the numerous questions it raises. The 12 bear all the earmarks of a later tradition retrojected into the Pauline letters (where they only appear once), and appearing in the gospels as a bit theopolitical aggrandizement on the part of the early Church. It is highly unlikely that Jesus appointed a fixed group of apostles in his own time (what for?). Instead, it probably arose later as an inner circle of those seeing visions of the Risen Jesus.

One way to attack the problem would be establish plausibility. Looking at other emergent cults, how many do you know of immediately produced a definite inner circle with a well-defined, fixed set of individuals that had an institutional name? The answer is probably going to be not very many, I suspect.

It is clear, at least to me, that the thinking of Kirby and Arnal on this topic takes into account a much wider range of ideas and traditions than yours does, and views the problem of the 12 in much richer and more productive ways.

Vorkosigan

Vinnie

No its not. I was somewhat skeptical against the Twelve recently. The reason being that some streams of early thought show no knowledge of such an authoritative group. But the point that wooden exegetes fail to realize is that the historical Jesus may have called the twelve but without all the authorial baggage of the later gospels. What remains to be seen is whether the twelve can pass the proper methodological tests.

It is also possible specifics names of the twelve were not known at first but Jesus had a core of close followers (male and female) and in the early church separate streams began to filter into different lists of the names.

I do not disagree with that at all. Mark was working with traditions he had. He was directly critiquing them.

Mark appears to cut out such a succession by his treatment.

I see nothing incoherent about it save the incoherence of imagining people being that dumb. Mark was slashing them and he was was using positive traditioons about them he had, and he was casting them negatively. If youknow of something I don't feel free to state it. I am not familiar with Carr's comments in the last thread.

What response by Peter Kirby? I responded to this:

"""""5. All of our traditions present Jesus as including women among his inner >circle, but none of the lists of 12 include women. """""""

This is a complete non-argument and it borders on double standards since the traditions are not mutually exclusive.

Would you please document these traditions and show that they are inconsistent with the Twelve.

Again, calling an all male twelve is compatible with woman followers in the inner circle. The agenda to wash women out appears towards the end of the first century. It is especially evident in the Pastoral epsitles and Luke may have this as well. How early it dates is uncertain.

Please do not bring up Gnostic documents from (presumably) the second century without some valid form of documentation. Specific texts, their dating and so on. Maybe you have come down with the latest Mary Magdalene fever and think these texts can actually tells us something about Jesus' followers ca. 30 C.E..

[quote]and in the resurrection fantasies is not a creation of some urgent 20th century egalitarianism, it is a fact of early Christianity that you must deal with. [/qiote]

What resurrection fantasies portray the women positively at all? Or do you mean their opposition in the rez fantasies show that there was a tradition to fight against? We do, however, know that Mary Magdalene was very popular in the early church and I would accept the latter of these but the former is more difficult to document.

At any rate, what methodology do you use to reconstruct that the historical Jesus had women followers in his inner circle? This ought to be interesting. What texts do you offer in support of this? What reasons do you cite for their inclusion or authenticity? I do no deny this, just so you know. I am merely asking.

By all means, please document the radical egalitarianism of earliest Christianity. I would like to see it? What texts? What sayings?

I never denied it was possible Jesus was egalitarian. It simply requires evidence and evidence not based upon squeezing more out of texts than they can bare which is what sensationalism tends to do.

I never said Jesus appointed them to run the show. That is one interpretation. It very well may have emerged in the early church that this group was authoritative and not in the life of the HJ.

The fact is that Jesus died unexpectedly and untimely. He may have expected to live until the coming of the kingdom and he may have expected to be a key figure in it. if we want to know if Jesus called an authoritative groupo we first have to ask "authoritative for what"? What was Jesus mission and message? He certainly did not call the group to spread the news of his death and resurrection which is what the Gospels more or less have him doing. That of course arose after his unexpected death. The nuance of the twelve may very well have changed drastically during all this.

You've made the twelve into a supression of women without any justification. You have totally avoided the question of historical methodology and how we determine if the tradition of the twelve are historical or not.

I do concede my nuance on the twelve has changed recenty, but as Amaleq will confirm, in print here I have expressed doubts about them recently.

Good for you and your newfound belief on Q.

Assertion based off of your newfound belief. I never relied on Q heavily. Was merely pointing out examples of MA and I suppose Q would be one of the early docs you'd cite with no mention of an authoritative group or some such thing. Even if it lacks authority it may still mention the twelve.

It depends what you mean by same entity. They are the same group in both texts but this does not mean the authors treated them the same, with the same authority, gender, respect, or even thought they had the same membership. Unless you want to argue there was a number of "twelves" running around in the first and second stratum I am going to take all the collective references in this way and assert there was one group and it existed during Paul's time. Luke, MArk and other's are treating the same grup though its contents may be wildly different.

Says you, Robert Price and Bernard Muller.

Actually it does not state Peter was or was not a member of the twelve. The usage is entirely ambiguous.

As I stated, none of them do. They are consistent with both interpretations. Paul merely documents the existence of the group in the first stratum. As I explicitly stated, and you missed, he tells us nothing about them.

This is incoherent to me?

[quote]rfectly reasonable to see the 12 in Mark as theological back projection. [/qiote]

Actually you would have to demonstrate Mark created these traditions and this requires critiquing the arguments for multiple attestation. Mark is simply trashing the twelve and I would argue he is using existing traditions he inherited from those who viewed the Twelve positively and authoritatively.

I agree. But Jesus himself may have instituted a group symbolically identifying and marking the restoration of Israel. That is the question I am asking. Not whether Jesus established and elite few to carry on his banner. His message in the gospels was nothing like his original message. The gospels are all about prteaching the death and rez of Jesus. He knew nothing of his death I presume and it was not the focal point of his mission or message. It was not the reason he called disciples either.

Further, Jesus may have called the twelve to rule in the coming kingdomw. Yet one member betrayed him, he died, the kingdom lagged on and all hell broke loose from there. Who knows?

At any rate there are quite a few competing claims to authority--non twelve authority meaning it is not universally recognized Jesus called an authoritative twelve. One may be forced to take it for granted Jesus did not settle the issue so definitively from the beginning on this basis.

James has nothing to do with this. That is James bro of Jesus if I am not mistaken, not the James, son of Zebedee of the twelve of the Gospels.

Further, even if Paul thought Jesus apoointed Peter in such a way (whether Jesus did or not) he can still oppose him for hypocrisy. Being appointed by Jesus to preach the good news does not equate to being infallible. yet we know, whether Paul believed it or not, the HJ who died unexpectedly, never actually appointed Peter to preach the "good news" as it was understood by them. The fulcrum of Jesus' mission and message had nothing to do with his non-existent and un-known and only soon to be death on a Roman cross.

See above comments on James, and you cannot dedude anything probative from a "silence here". We do not know the extent of Paul's thoughts on Peter. I think it is safe to assume Paul knew Peter was a follower of the historical Jesus. This is fairly easy to argue. That Paul knew Peter was a member of the Twlve is more difficult if you ask me. But I think Paul mentions Peter and the Twelve together for a reaon in 1 Corinthians 15.

The question we need to be asking is "why they were pillars". Paul does not tell us.

This is irrelevant. In Thomas the disciples are framed as people who don't understand. At any rate, Thomas mentions these names: James, Peter, Mary, Salome, Matthew, and Thomas.

It doesn't mention James the "pillar" according to Paul. The silence is not probative.

First, I did npot respond to any of these statements. I responded to the text you quoted, not different arguments never made there.

At any rate, Thomas represents a stream of rival claims to authority. This, at the least, serves as an argument that Jesus did not settle the issue from the beginning. But the Twelve need not have been authoritative to have been called by Jesus. This is where you and Twelve skeptics like JD Crossan go wrong.

Again, you set up a false dilemma. Jesus may have been symbolically demonstrating the restoration of Isreal. One does not need assume Jesus set up an authoritative cell or one that numbered exactly Twelve. Then again it may have had fluctuating male mebership bordering near Twelve. Jesus may even have thought of them as pivotal figures in the future as were all his disciples. Maybe these even especially so. But we know Jesus died, whetever his misison may have been, it changed a bit after his unexpected death which later became the fulcrum of faith.

The twelve may have lost its authority since Christianity or the Jesus movement evolved so significantly after Jesus' death. Who knows? This may explain why many of the names in the lsit of the twelve are little more than that, unknown names.

I still think its more probable than not Jesus called the twelve which represented the tribles of Israel. The authority, extent and scope of this twelve is largely unknown. You have accused me of mechanical history but its coming back to haunt your own mechanical skepticism.

Vinnie

Amaleq13

These appear to me to be contradictory positions. The idea of retrojecting the canonical narratives into Paul's mind is the same as the idea of using the Gospel stories ("canonical narratives") to understand Paul ("retrojected into Paul's mind").

Either it is legitimate to use the Gospel stories to understand Paul's thinking or it is not. I agree with Kirby that it is not. Despite the confusing quotes above, your argument clearly assumes that it is.

It certainly is because Paul never describes Peter as either. He never describes Peter as a follower of an historical Jesus and he never (as you admitted-see quote immediately following) describes Peter as a member of the twelve.

Regarding 1 Cor 15:5, I wrote:
...you also cannot assume that Peter is a member from this passage.

You replied:
Agreed on the basis of that passage alone.

Actually, it is on the basis of the entire body of Paul's letters but, regardless, you then proceeded to make an appeal to retroject ("cross reference") information from the Gospel narratives ("other sources") in order to support your conclusion. Despite your claim to the contrary above, your actual argument assumes it is legitimate to retroject the canonical narratives into the mind of Paul.

Q does not mention "the twelve". The closest you get to "the twelve" in Q is the last verse:

"You are those who have continued with me in my trials; as my Father appointed a kingdom for me, so do I appoint for you that you may eat and drink at my table in my kingdom, and sit on thrones judging the twelve tribes of Israel."

from Kirby's website (actually, my copy of his CD): http://www.uncc.edu/jdtabor/Qluke.html

Yuri Kuchinsky

"We know", Vinnie?

Maybe _you_ know, but I claim no such knowledge. In fact, I'm pretty sure that the gospel did not end on such a down note...

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I assume this as background knowledge. Others might disagree but my views come from this position.

You seem to be way too optimistic about the state of your "background knowledge".

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As I showed, this is a slam on the women who come ot the tomb too late to anoint Jesus.

Tell you what. IMHO even the whole Tomb Burial thing wasn't in the original proto-gospel! The whole thing was added in the 2c, ca. 140CE.

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I take it then that a programmatic denigration was in Mark very early. Crossan finds parallels between the unnamed woman in Mark 14 and the named woman in Mark 16 and the named apostles all throughout Mark and the unnamed centurion in 15. Both the unnamed are portrayed positively as understanding whereas all the named figures are portrayed as incompetant dunderheaeds. This parallel does count as evidence in my book but it is notably, rather slight.

All that may even be valid, but for which edition of Mk?

I think you're really walking on water in this whole analysis of yours...

Cheers,

Yuri.

Vinnie

I'm not the one inventing hypothetical documents, Yuri. I used the earliest and best attestation of Mark's Gospel we have, Matthew and Luke. You don't think a few minor agreements of Mt and Lk against mark like the ones I documented justify your assertion that "the whole Tomb Burial thing wasn't in the original proto-gospel!"

The fact that you disagree with the solid reasons put forth by numerous scholars who view Mark as ending originally at 16:8 is not reason enough for you to go and poison the well. Just because you disagree with the 2 source theory, which I argue under, is no reason for you to call my views "too optimistic." I am working under a hypothesis, as do you. Mine happens to be the communis opinio, might I add.

If you think this is a down note you were walking on water when you read Mark. It may have been the final nail of dozens in the coffin! It is oooo sooo consistent with Mark' portrait on the whole. A portrait which I documented, through the external evidence provided by Matthew and Luke, that said material was in the earliest version.

I know you think there was some reworked uber Jewish Gospel under Mark but you have no evidence for this assertion. Further, sicne I am not bound, concerned with, or worried about semitism, political correctness or church theology, I safely say my "food-law declaringnil, pro-Gentile, I hate the apostles" reconstruction has all the attestation in the world.

Vinnie

Yuri Kuchinsky

Oh, Vinnie, you've already given up your belief in Q? Glad to hear about it!

Quote:

I used the earliest and best attestation of Mark's Gospel we have, Matthew and Luke.

Well, I think there are some obvious logical problems with saying that only those parts of Mk that are also found _both_ in Mt and Lk can be the original Mk. For example, why can't we say that those parts of Mk that are found _only_ in Mt, or _only_ in Lk can also be the original Mk?

Quote:

You don't think a few minor agreements of Mt and Lk against mark like the ones I documented justify your assertion that "the whole Tomb Burial thing wasn't in the original proto-gospel!"

I don't think that the Tomb Burial was in the original proto-gospel. Because IMHO the original proto-gospel was quartodeciman.

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The fact that you disagree with the solid reasons put forth by numerous scholars who view Mark as ending originally at 16:8 is not reason enough for you to go and poison the well. Just because you disagree with the 2 source theory, which I argue under, is no reason for you to call my views "too optimistic." I am working under a hypothesis, as do you. Mine happens to be the communis opinio, might I add.

Well, I'm not so impressed...

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If you think this is a down note you were walking on water when you read Mark. It may have been the final nail of dozens in the coffin! It is oooo sooo consistent with Mark' portrait on the whole. A portrait which I documented, through the external evidence provided by Matthew and Luke, that said material was in the earliest version.

It's a down note whether you like it or not...

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I know you think there was some reworked uber Jewish Gospel under Mark but you have no evidence for this assertion.

I have plenty of evidence.

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Further, sicne I am not bound, concerned with, or worried about semitism, political correctness or church theology, I safely say my "food-law declaringnil, pro-Gentile, I hate the apostles" reconstruction has all the attestation in the world. Vinnie

A Jewish Gospel under Mark explains all the evidence in the most complete and satisfactory way.

Regards,

Yuri.

justsumner

That these gospel stories were the result of some 50-80 years after the events they depict, and after having been run through the minds of countless wishfull thinkers. Jesus (the man) was killed around 32 ad (just as a side note, the "Good theif" was not a theif. Roman's cut the hands off theives. Only political subversives were crucified). Mark was never written down until some time after 702ad, Luke and Matthew around 80ad, and John perhaps as late as 110ad. Besides, the oldest ms we have are from the late 3rd century and are VERY different from what one reads in the NAB or KJV bibles. Much was added to paul's writings as well, especially Romans, and 2nd Cor.

I am sure if no one wrote down any information about GW Bush, and 30 or 40 years from now Conservatives who had always been told how great he was began to assemble a book about his great deads, and it was based on hear say and rumour, he would probably come out smelling like a rose.

Yuri Kuchinsky

Welcome aboard, justsumner!

Well, myself, I would move the earliest editions even a bit later... Let's say the earliest proto-gospel ca. 100 CE.

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Besides, the oldest ms we have are from the late 3rd century and are VERY different from what one reads in the NAB or KJV bibles.

The oldest MSS (fragmentary Papyri) ca. 200.

The oldest complete MSS ca. 350.

But you're right, our earliest Papyri are generally quite different from NAB or KJV.

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Much was added to paul's writings as well, especially Romans, and 2nd Cor.

I see that you're a radical!

99% of our mainstream NT scholars would freak out at this!

Quote:

I am sure if no one wrote down any information about GW Bush, and 30 or 40 years from now Conservatives who had always been told how great he was began to assemble a book about his great deads, and it was based on hear say and rumour, he would probably come out smelling like a rose.

Quite right...

All the best,

Yuri.