Simon Magus

Greetings to you all!

My specialty is science, logic and mathematics, and I was formerly and atheist, but I've been studying NT scholarship intensely for the last 8 weeks of so in order to take a Zen approach on which Christian denomination to join.

I think Yuri is on the right track here. If you assume, generously, that there is a 95% chance of one anti-Markan textual agreement in Mt and Lk occurring, and generously assume that there are only 100 such agreements, then the probability of one document not knowing the other is 0.6%! My Zen approach to this issue compels me to agree with Yuri.

This "Argument of Length" and so forth for Markan priority I find to be reminiscent of the various Creationist arguments against evolution. It is pseudoscience and countrary to common sense, which, may I add, is extremely uncommon amongst academics.

I find it unlikely that the earliest documents would be Q and Mark since they are both Gentile/Paulinist dreams.

My theory is that Luke was the first Roman Christian historian and that he had a number of documents in front him in order to compose his "Letter to Theophilus", and perhaps he had also heard a few rumours. I am pretty well convinced that one of these documents was the Gospel of the Ebionites which (?Clement) describes as "a forged and mutilated form of Matthew." I submit for your approval the possibility that GEbionite did not deny the virginity of Mary but simply did not mention it, because the author had not been to the council of Nicaea! I also submit that the document appeared mutilated because it was older and more authentic. From all accounts this document was more in line with the form of Jewish Christianity that Eisenmen, in his book "James the Brother of Jesus", demonstrates was the authentic version.

I propose that GEbionite was later dignified with a Romanised account, "Matthew", by a Roman redactor. This hypothetical redactor would have had GEbionite and Luke in front of him and he would have made everything fall in line, so as to produce the textual agreements that Yuri talks about. This theory would explain why Clement associated the two documents of Matthew and GEbionite.

Until my ignorance is corrected, Simon.

EDIT: I forgot to explicitly state that what "scholars" call "Q" is really a composite of Luke copying from GEbionite and the hypothetical redactor I spoke of making GEbionite and Luke fall into line in his composition of Matthew. Q never existed as a document and there is no historical evidence of it. The gentile nature of Q simply reflects Luke's Roman sensibilities in copying from GEbionite.

[ September 12, 2002: Message edited by: Simon Magus ]

[ September 12, 2002: Message edited by: Simon Magus ]</p>

CX

Any idea how long it is? I don't have much time these days, but I still do occasionally read for pleasure. As I'm somewhat conversant in French I could give you the "Cliffs Notes" version of gospel references if it wasn't too long.

CX

Why? Also you need to distinguish between earliest documents and earliest documents we know of. Xianiy in the first 2 centuries of the common era is very fuzzy viewed through the lens of history.

Furthermore the argument for Markan priority is much more complex than you seem to imply. What are your specific objections to the key points of Markan Priority? I've read considerable amounts on the subject over the last few years and I fail to see what is "pseudoscientifc" about it. The so-called "argument from length" is not an argument at all and is rarely used these days to support Markan Priority.

Yuri Kuchinsky

Thank you, Simon!

I think this is what any impartial observer would have to conclude...

<strong> You may have misunderstood me here a bit. Myself, I certainly accept that the earliest proto-gospels would have been rather short. And this is also what Loisy says. So IMHO the "Argument from Length" isn't such a bad argument, after all.

In fact, I accept that Mk does indeed preserve the shorter form of the earlier proto-Mk.

<strong> And I agree with you here.

<strong> And here, the arguments that you're getting into are quite complex. But in general, I do find it quite plausible that the earliest gospel of all may have been the proto-Luke. This view is also accepted by quite a few professional NT scholars today.

<strong> All these things may indeed be possible, but here we'd be getting into some really complex issues...

All the best,

Yuri.