Writer@Large

I've never found the answer "Jesus wouldn't have learned how to write" terribly convincing when this question comes up. If he *was* God incarnate, why would he have to *learn* to write? Surely, a man who can turn water into wine, walk on water, and raise the dead shouldn't have any trouble miraculously teaching himself penmanship and grammar.

--W@L

Vinnie

The problem is how Jesus is viewed. I don't know how "two-minds view" advocates would answer it but those who hold to a self_emptying-kenotic form of incarnation have a plausible answer. Conservatives also have to face the tradition that Jesus did not know the day or the hour and non-conservatives need to face Sander's arguement that Jesus was mistaken on the timing. These do not seem to mix with "omniscience" or "divinity" very well. But these are all very consistent with a kenotic view.

Vinnie

SULPHUR

Why did he need to write.Others did it for him which is a more effective proof.

Tristan Scott

Exactly.

If Jesus did write something the chances of it surviving would be unlikely. Writing was not used widely for communications, because writing was a relatively expensive enterprise. Copies had to be hand written, and it was due to this more than anything else that such high percentages of the population were not literate. Why learn to read if you could never get your hands on anything to read?

If the Jesus figure of the Bible existed it is most likely that he would have preached the word rather than write it down, as a vast majority of his audience were most likely illiterate.

There was probably a chronicle of the things that he said, possibly written by one of his followers, probably from memory rather than verbatum. Many scholars now believe this chronicle was used in writing the Gospels of Matthew, Luke and possibly the Gospel of Thomas as well. This is the so-called Q Gospel.

Paradoxically the Q gospel, while adding to the probability of a historic Jesus, paints the picture of a Jesus much different than the Jesus in the Christian bible.

Vinnie

Unfortunately, this all-powerful creator is uncritically assumed to be the implausible God of supernatural theism. That is one assumption I find problematic. Another with this desert book is that it seems to be based upon the idea that God wants to teach people facts or the notion that there is not some purpose to our strugglings. God is in the business of salvation and that isn't as simple as hey look, 2+2=4. Further, it probably neglects to take into account the limitations of a free world and assumes salvation is limited to this life. Its simply, then, a critique of fundamentalism.

Vinnie

Vinnie

You mean a Jesus missing the Pauline kerygma?

Vinnie

Tristan Scott

Yes.

Q makes Jesus sound more like a cynic than a Jew.

Dr Rick

That's doesn't seem likely. There is no evidence that the Jews worshipped the tablets upon which the Ten Commandments were purportedly inscribed by God himself.

There are many holy artifacts and places such as Mecca, The Shroud of Turin, and The Wailing Wall which are felt to be divine in some way but are not worshipped in the place of god(s).

If He didn't write anything intentionally, then of course it would be according to "the Divine plan." If he did write something and it was destroyed or remains hidden, that would also be by design and just brings us back to the original question of why He didn't leave anything written by His own hand.

Rick

Vinnie

Not all scholars agree with this though. See, for example, Meier's brief excursis on Q in Marginal, V2 pp. 177-181 and note 279 on p. 233.

As quoted from Brown's intro to the NT:

One scholar (Kloppenborg) sees Q as a type of wisdom sayings collection with prophetic additions while another (Sato) sees it in analogy to the OT prophetic books with sapiential additions. This issue is not clear cut to me.

I am still not sold either way on this one but I will say that the arguments here seem tenuous and they do require very specialized knowledge which I do not possess.

Vinnie

Tristan Scott

Q research is in it's infancy. Fascinating stuff which is opening a lot of new doors of discovery. For example there is renewed interest in stidying Gallilee archeologically and anthropologically.